It is said that history is written by the victors. In the case of the 2012 election it’s hard to see how that’s even possible given that with the current trajectory of the GOP primaries we’re all going to end up losers.

Rarely does it occur that choices and consequences of government policies are so starkly presented for an electorate as they are today. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the GOP field as an alternative to our big government president.

Today, the national debt stands at approximately $15 trillion, or almost $50,000 per American citizen. $4.6 trillion of that debt was run up under Barack Obama. That exceeds the combined amount of debt accumulated by every president from George Washington through the first George Bush. Everyone knows that too much debt is a bad thing. Even Candidate Barack Obama knew enough and told us on the campaign trail:

The problem is, that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, # 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that now we have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back, $30,000 for every man woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.

So what George Bush accomplished in eight years, Barack Obama has accomplished in three. And it’s only going to get worse. By Candidate Obama’s rationale that must make President Obama über unpatriotic.

Well, the President will tell you that the policies behind that spending were necessary to save the country from a depression and are finally beginning to bear fruit. He’d point to December’s unemployment rate that dropped to 8.5%, from a peak of 10.1% in November of ’09. As the fourth best president in our history, he’s obviously doing something right.

Or maybe not… When Barack Obama took office the population of the United States was 306 million and there were 186 million people working with an additional 14.9 million people looking for work, resulting in an unemployment rate of 7.4%. (14.9 million / 201 million) That 201 million is called the Workforce and it’s the key to understanding unemployment numbers. Workforce is defined as the following:

Total number of a country’s population employed in the armed forces and civilian jobs, plus those unemployed people who are actually seeking paying work.

Today, three years after Barack Obama took office the population has grown to 312 million but the workforce has actually shrunk from 201 million to 199 million. That means that despite adding 6 million people, the number of Americans working or actively seeking work has dropped by 2 million. Add to that the 4 million working age new Americans and you have a total of 6 million more people not working or even looking since Barack Obama took office. That’s how you get to 8.5% unemployment; you get people to stop looking for a job in the first place. He’s definitely doing something, but it’s not good. Nor is it unprecedented.

The big government policies that Barack Obama is shoving down American’s throats are this very day showing themselves to be utterly unsustainable a mere 5,000 miles away. Within the last week S&P downgraded the debt of nine (9) European countries, including EU giants France, Italy and Spain. The Euro is on the brink and the economies are disasters. If that were not bad enough, unemployment in Europe is so high (10% overall and 9% in France, 14% in Ireland, 18% in Greece and a whopping 23% in Spain) that a continent already unable to replace itself is shrinking even faster as an increasing number of its citizens emigrate to seek jobs elsewhere. In Greece the economic problems are so bad that parents are now abandoning babies and children at hospitals and churches across the country.

Which brings us back to the American election of 2012. The big government policies of Barack Obama are bringing the train wreck that is Europe to our shores. Unfortunately, the candidates leading the GOP charge to unseat him are little better, despite their protestations to the contrary. They claim to be conservatives, but they are not. They are big government advocates, just less so than Barack Obama.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that the only candidate in the GOP field who actually has a record of pursuing small government policies is seemingly unable to articulate those ideas to the average voter. If that candidate, Rick Perry, is to have any chance at all to resurrect his campaign he will have to do something dramatically different and he’ll have to do it soon. He should drop the oafish Bain Capital attacks and instead focus in a laser like fashion on smaller government. That is the one issue that every American can relate to regardless of age, sex, race etc. The rapacious nature of government must be demonstrated in a way they understand. In South Carolina, where the NLRB just tried to kill a Boeing plant, that message should resonate particularly well.

And how should he do that? With PowerPoint of course. PowerPoint might be a stretch, but not by much. The image of a burning Europe with its big government economies in ruin, double digit unemployment, rioters in the streets and babies abandoned on the sidewalks makes a perfect foil for the big government policies of both Barack Obama and the rest of the GOP field. Those are the kinds of images that voters can relate to because they see more and more of them on our own shores. And of course PowerPoint would come in handy when trying to remember what agencies to cut…

It would be a shame if when the history of the 2012 election is written Rick Perry is reduced to a 53 second footnote. Particularly because that means that some big government advocate won. Despite how damaging that sub one minute episode was, it need not be fatal to his campaign, but the time is getting short. With only 2% of the delegates decided, Rick Perry still has an opportunity to resurrect his campaign and maybe change history. His only hope is to harness the power of what Americans clearly don’t want, which is on such brilliant display right across the pond. With the images of Athens on fire, London under siege of by rioters and Naples covered in trash, even the least engaged voter can understand the correlation between big government and economic ruin and social failure. It’s up to Rick Perry to figure out how to make that case. If he does he has a shot at winning. If he can’t he’s destined to be a footnote in American political history.

A few months prior to the 2008 election my friend The Destroyer of Colons asked me, “When Bush is gone, who are liberals going to hate?” He was only half joking. “Not to worry,” I assured him with a smile, “liberals can always find someone to designate as an object of their hatred.”

When I was in high school the priest who was teaching our Senior year psychology class had us write an essay based on the quote, “If God did not exist man would have to create him.” This was many years ago, but I recall my conclusion being something to the effect of saying that given mankind’s emotional and psychological needs if God did not exist we would have to create some divine being to believe in to give our lives greater meaning.

This was actually a blog post I was kicking around last year, looking back on 2008 when the focus of the left’s anger was directed toward Sarah Palin. It was almost surreal watching the hateful delight they took in watching our press journalistically rape her family while these same “professionals” ignored trivial matters like the horrifically flawed economic policies or lack of experience and questionable past of one party’s actual presidential candidate. Personally I’m not a big Palin fan – I see her as someone with very real flaws to go with some very real accomplishments, but the way she enunciates just grates on me (sorry, that’s just me). Then again, at least I generally agree with the substance of what she’s saying and if her speaking manner is fingernails on a blackboard to me hearing her talk is probably a tabasco sauce enema to leftists. For that matter, the fact that the very mention of her name can send most leftists into a seething, purple-faced rage will always earn her a place in my heart. Not to mention this past summer’s bus tour when the same press who had so much fun dumpster diving through her and her family’s lives were now crying that she was treating them like paparazzi – that was a thing of beauty.

Getting back on topic, it seems that no matter what the time is, the left has to have someone as their focus as their anger. Even in those early days of the Obama presidency when all was right in the world their focus went toward Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck – reliable standbys. And then came the Tea Party. If you missed it the first time, check out my two part posting illustrating the left’s anger toward the Tea Party as told through the five stages of death and dying.

The left threw out every bit of hateful invective that they had in their arsenal. The Tea Party was labeled astroturfers, racists, seditionists, idiots, rubes, and terrorists. Their crowning slur came when none of these charges stuck and the left threw to the most disrespectful, malevolent smear they could find toward the Tea Party – they compared the Tea Party to leftists.

Another interesting case study in leftist anger is the comic strip Doonesbury. While I once enjoyed it as an actual comic, over the last decade it’s morphed into a sounding board for the angry and bitter leftist, Garry Trudeau. From 2000 – 2008 his range of topics could be summed up as:

• Hatred for George Bush
• Hatred for Fox News
• Hatred for George Bush
• Hatred for Schwarzenegger
• Hatred for George Bush

And of course, during the 2008 presidential campaign Sarah Palin joined this crowd. Mix in some patronizing, if not outright disdain for the military, and that pretty much sums up every comic not involving the personal lives of the characters, although these themes are generally woven in as well. One would expect that with a president as spectacularly inept as President Obama, Trudeau would have a field day. So naturally his strips have become focused on hated for Palin, Donald Trump, the Tea Party, and of course sympathy for the OWSers and their distaste for… prosperity?

After following the progression of Bush-Chaney-Palin-Limbaugh- Beck-Tea Partiers-The Un-Romney of the Month, we find ourselves at Tim Tebow. For those of you unfamiliar Tim Tebow is a pro football player, and is currently the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He has gained fame for his erratic style of play, leading his team to several improbable come-from behind wins. That made him famous in the sports world, but what took him beyond was his religion. To build on Dr. John’s analysis, Tebow became famous for combining his unusual talents with his spiritual beliefs. Tim Tebow is a devout Christian, and is quite public about it. “Tebowing”, the act of kneeling and bowing one’s head in prayer with fingertips on your forehead has become a national sensation in itself. He gained some notoriety for painting scripture verses in his eye black while playing college ball at the University of Florida. Tebow also caused a minor uproar during last year’s Super Bowl when he starred in an ad for a Pro-Life group, telling about how his mother had an at risk pregnancy where abortion was recommended, and how happy Tim Tebow and his mother were that she chose to have him. This created a bit of controversy, but no more than if a tasteful Pro-Choice ad had aired during the Super Bowl starring a famous female athlete. An example off of the top of my head would be if a top track star mentioned how getting pregnant in high school would have cost her a college scholarship and ensured a life in the impoverished place where she grew up. An ad like that would have gotten some criticism on the right, and would probably have blown over as quickly as Tebow’s ad did.

But then Tebow did the unforgivable – he became a famous Christian who is open about his faith. With the Denver Broncos’ poor play early on in the 2011 season Tim Tebow, who opened the season at #3 on the Broncos’ depth chart at Quarterback, was now the starter. And he started winning. And winning. And winning ugly. The team adjusted its offense to make the best use of Tebow’s athleticism and, let’s face it, terrible passing accuracy. Tebow had this strange habit of playing badly for three quarters and then pulling out an almost miraculous victory. I saw one person nickname Tebow “Uncle Miltie”, based on an NSFW-ish story about the late comedian Milton Berle that ends with the punch line, “just enough to win.”

The end of regular season’s performance (losses) by Tebow and the Broncos have bought Tebowmania back to Earth, but during his ascent and decline and once again ascent in his playoff win over the Steelers we’ve seen no shortage of venom from the left directed at this young man. David Schuster, the always reliably unhinged Bill Maher, even one of the more rational leftists in Bill Press all took their turns attacking Tebow. Heck, even The Nation, not exactly known as a sports publication, had to write several articles on the quarterback that the left loves to hate.

Why all of this hatred for someone who has done nothing wrong, or broken any laws? For that matter, while some may find his openness about his faith obnoxious, Tebow isn’t out trying to beat everyone he meets over the head with a Bible and preaching conversion. You know what else he isn’t doing? He’s not doing drugs. He’s not driving drunk. He’s not participating in dog fighting rings. He’s not bringing guns into nightclubs. He’s not fathering children out of wedlock to several different mothers. And he’s not murdering anyone. Granted, the matelote in each of the scenarios I just mentioned have gotten varying degrees of scorn for their actions, but none that were so ideologically centered. So why do leftists give the athletes in the categories I just mentioned a pass while directing so much venom at one man who most people would actually be happy to see their sister or daughter dating? It’s the same reason the left has so much hatred for the likes of Sarah Palin or the Tea Party.

They have to. Leftist policy just doesn’t work in the real world – look at Communism in Soviet Russia, Europe’s socialistic gradual death spiral (and that’s despite the US subsidizing their national defense) or or that matter, look no further than the White House. When Oregon was considering an Obamacare/Romneycare-esque health care mandate The Destroyer of Colons mused, “I hope that this bill passes, just so we can show leftists once and for all that government run health care doesn’t work.” I just shook my head and responded, “That won’t happen. Leftist policies never fail because they are bad ideas, only because greedy individuals refuse to throw enough money at their bad ideas.”

This is what leads to the Left’s permanent state of anger. When your bad ideas don’t work you can either reflect on them and learn from it, or you can cling to your bad ideas and be angry because nobody gets your genius. Without introspection as an option, a target must be found – hence the left’s continuous rotating figurehead as the object of their anger.

Even worse is how badly it is often misdirected. Look at the OWS’ers and their anger at… something. Granted, most of the movement is made up of Unionistas, career grievance mongers (Code Pink, ACORN, etc), students who have no idea what the real world is like, and criminals. These are all traditional Democrat-leaning groups, but at some point one would think that the Obama-rose-colored glasses have to come off and the realization has to set in that the president and Congress are the reason our economy is flagging. Maybe people who demonize profitability and threaten to punish the prosperity that leads to job creation are why companies are afraid to hire. On a personal level, maybe their facial piercings, lack of personal hygiene, and sense of entitlement are why nobody wants to hire them for any of the ever-scarcer job openings. Sorry, but the 12-16 years spent getting gold stars and being told you’re special for just showing up are over.

Again, rather than look at the causes of their unhappiness it is easier for the left to lash out in unthinking rage. The worst example that would actually be comical if it weren’t so disgusting was the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. So blinded by their hatred for Sarah Palin were the leftists that they had to manufacture an excuse to pretend that she was somehow responsible for the shooting. To make matters worse, when she called them on their idiocy, they double downed on stupid and got even angrier at her simply for pointing out the error of their ways. And the sad part is the lefties started shrieking about how classless and stupid Palin was for doing so, when the place they should have been looking was the mirror.

This is not to say that all leftists are constantly out looking for someone to hate to fill the void in their lives. I understand that the tone of this post is a lot more accusatory than what I usually write but, as I dispel my own straw man a better question does come from it. Why does there always seem to be someone in the news who is the object of leftist anger, and why is it so viscous?

So where will Tebow go? Maybe he fizzles out by losing to the New England Patriots this weekend as badly as he did a few weeks ago, or maybe he goes on to win the Super Bowl.

"Only Tim Tebow can save us now!"

My favorite take on Tebow came in ESPN columnist DJ Gallo’s weekly satire of Peter King’s "Monday Morning Quarterback." In this week’s "The Hangover" Gallo speculates as to where Tebow may be in twelve years:

"Will a wholesome, handsome ex-football star who can draw the religious vote and appeal to the tens of millions of Oprah-loving pop psychologists win 51 percent of the vote in the 2024 presidential election? No, he will win 91 percent of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. The 9 percent who don’t vote for him will just be hard-core Raiders, Chargers, Chiefs, Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Ron Paul fans."

Tebow for President in 2024!

I’m kidding, of course. The only person to get Brother Bob’s coveted endorsement for president is none other than the great Stannis Baratheon.

But until then we have Tim Tebow.

Anyone remember this from 2008?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Q: When Congress offers you a bill, do you promise not to use presidential signage [sic] to get your way?

OBAMA: Yes. [Applause] Let me just explain for those who are unfamiliar with this issue. You know, we’ve got a government designed by the founders so that there’d be checks and balances. You don’t want a President that’s too powerful or a Congress that’s too powerful or courts that are too powerful. Everybody’s got their own role. Congress’ job is to pass legislation. The President can veto it, or he can sign it. But what George Bush has been trying to do is part of his effort to accumulate more power in the Presidency, is, he’s been saying, “Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter that says ‘I don’t agree with this part’ or ‘I don’t agree with that part.’ I’m going to choose to interpret it this way or that way.” Uh, that’s not part of his power. But this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he’s going along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for ten years, I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress.

Hypocrisy….thy name is Obama.

President Obama said Friday he will not be bound by at least 20 policy riders in the 2012 omnibus funding the government, including provisions pertaining to Guantanamo Bay and gun control.

After he signed the omnibus into law Friday, the White House released a concurrent signing statement saying Obama will object to portions of the legislation on constitutional grounds.

Signing statements are highly controversial, and their legality is disputed.

“I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress’s consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient,” Obama said in a statement as he signed the bill into law.

So no end round Congress there? The worst Attorney General in history, Eric Holder, said:

“So we are in a better place, I think the regulations, procedures that will help, and we’ll also have a signing statement from the president” which will help clarify how they view the law, Holder said.

Yup, that’s called doing a end run around Congress Mr. President.

Where are they cries from the MSM and the Democrats? Or do they only cry when a Republican is in the White House? Hell, Charlie Savage at the New York Times won a Pulitzer for his work on Bush’s “abuse” of signing statements. The American Bar Association denounced Bush’s use of signing statements. Democrats called Bush’s use of signing statements as the beginning of a dictatorship. Not a peep about Obama’s.

I’m shocked!

The liberal hypocrisy is mindblowing….just mindblowing:

So Obama enters a war against a foe who had no intention of attacking us, where no vital U.S. interests were in jeopardy, and then after the 60 days are up he illegally keeps us in that war lying to us about our intentions (since when do tanks and convoys fly?) but it’s all a-ok because the dictator is dead?

Hmmmm:

If anyone deserved the treatment given to Khaddafi it is KSM. He deserved to be drug through the streets, beaten and summarily executed. But the left whined and railed because the man was waterboarded. After which he gave hugely valuable information. Now this animal is executed (and deserved the treatment received) but we hear no whines about human rights and all that jazz.

Tom Maguire reminds us of another hypocrisy. Recall the complaints given by the left over the Iraq war. Specifically that we had no plan AFTER we defeated the enemy. Funny how we’re not hearing those complaints now as Obama leads from behind, but is quick to take all the kudos for the death of Khaddafi.

I’m happy the thug is dead, but the whole thing stinks to high heaven of mindblowing hypocrisy.

Jake Tapper appeared on the Dennis Miller radio show last week and basically admitted to the bias in the MSM. He acknowledges the fact that the media completely ignored Obama’s Medal of Honor gaffe while the media jumped all over Palin’s and Bachmann’s recent gaffes:

Tapper at one point seemed on the verge of admitting the media liberal bias. He allowed, “But the question is, okay, and removing the ideological bias, and I don’t- do not generally disagree that there is-” Unfortunately, Miller interrupted him.

The White House correspondent attempted to shift the issue to one of sexism, suggesting that Hillary Clinton dealt with much harsher criticism than Obama. However, Good Morning America, where Tapper frequently appears, fawned over both.

As Scott Whitlock points out above, the Democrat girls got plenty of love. So Jake’s point that maybe its not ideological bias but instead it’s anti-woman bias doesn’t hold up.

How about this gaffe by Obama, overlooked long ago:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the author at Verum Serum acknowledges…the gaffe isn’t that big of a deal but it IS a gaffe, just as Palin’s and Bachmann’s were. Minor and inconsequential. But the MSM went apes**t over theirs but they blackout and ignore Obama’s.

Ace:

They always do this. They will eat razors before they admit to any liberal bias. They will confess to a hundred biases, even some they do not actually have, before they will admit to a liberal bias.

Let me give you an example I always give. If the Black Correspondent’s Association (or whatever) claims the press has a subtle anti-black bias, the media will consider this and meet with that association and consider implementing reforms/safeguards to ensure against such bias continuing. They’ll have a panel discussion on Nightline or Meet the Press to seriously consider this bias.

Same thing with anti-woman bias. Or anti-Muslim bias.

The press is perfectly willing to consider the possibilities it is biased in many ways, and take seriously such complaints.

Except for one, of course. The one bias they will not admit to having, ever, is a liberal ideological bias. (And note– the biases they’re willing to cop to tend to require them, to cure those biases, to adopt even more anti-conservative positions. Biased against women? Include more feminist voices. Biased against Muslims? Make sure the country knows about anti-Muslim “hate” in the form of racial profiling. Biased against blacks? Agitate for preferences, quotas and so on.)

Why? For two reasons:

1. That is the bias they are most flagrantly, obviously guilty of, and no one likes confessing to their real flaws. People will cop to lesser flaws and non-flaws all the time. But not their deep dark dirty laundry.

2. Because they absolutely despise conservatives. Because they hate conservatives so much that they view this entirely as political actors, and if conservatives “win” a little on this point (as a serious discussion about it would represent), then they lose.

They won’t admit it because they are selling a narrative rather than reporting the truth.

As Journolist taught us all, they have an agenda.

The rubble of a residential building hit by a Nato air strike in Tripoli, which caused civilian casualties. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

The hypocrisy of the left continues to blow my mind. Recall just a few years ago the utter outrage directed at President Bush when he said:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But now that President Obama has gotten us into a war against a country that didn’t attack us (remember that line?) his Administration is saying:

But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi’s side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

Will the side that elected one of the most vocal war critics now attack this statement? Especially seeing as how this little “excursion” is quickly turning into a quagmire:

Italy called for a suspension of hostilities in Libya on Wednesday in the latest sign of dissent within NATO as the civilian death toll mounts and Moamer Kadhafi shows no signs of quitting power.

The outgoing head of the Arab League and a frontrunner to become president of a democratic Egypt has voiced reservations about Nato’s bombing campaign in Libya, calling for a ceasefire and talks on a political settlement while Muammar Gaddafi remains in power.

On Wednesday, former premier and current conservative presidential candidate Dominique de Villepin told French radio the Libyan campaign had gone on long enough, and already achieved everything that could be achieved by force. From here on out, de Villepin urged, “the accent should be placed on (finding) a political solution in Libya”. The previous day, conservative legislator and foreign affairs specialist Axel Poniatowski similarly said that some sort of diplomatic solution for Libya had to be found to help end the military action. Conservative MP and defense expert Michel Voisin says that while few legislators have yet to turn against an operation they were told would be very brief, the risk of it becoming a slog means “some are now asking themselves if this intervention was really necessary, and if it’s worth pursuing”.

Where are the Iraq War protesters now?

UPDATE

Recall this?

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
— Hillary Rodham Clinton

So, you’re a liberal who protested against President Bush for being an imperial megalomanic out to control the world and wars against all those oppose him. Now that you’re living with President Obama, who now shows he has even overstepped Nixon’s legacy for imperialism, are you out there protesting?

I thought not:

WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.

Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

His Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel and his top DoD lawyer, both of whom are charged with giving him advice on these kinds of subjects, told him that he must abide by the War Powers Act in regards to Libya.

So what does he do? He went lawyer shopping and found a few that told him what he wanted to hear. That, in some alternative universe, it’s not a war because they aren’t shooting back at us. Nevermind we are dropping bombs, firing missiles, and all that other war making jazz. Naw, it’s not a war.

Guess who else disagreed with our Imperial Overlord?

Other high-level Justice lawyers were also involved in the deliberations, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. supported Ms. Krass’s [DoD general counsel] view, officials said.

He directs the DOJ to stop defending the Defense On Marriage Act, he orders the EPA to do an end-around Congress and installs cap & trade via regulations instead, he pushes through a bill that allows the federal government to take over health care, and now he wages war without congressional approval and against the advice of his lawyers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So why is it that those who opposed President Bush’s “power grabs” and protested non-stop doing the same for this man?

I wonder.

I actually agree with John Yoo here, the War Powers Resolution is not constitutional:

The treatment isn’t to force everyone to obey an unconstitutional law, the War Powers Resolution, that is both untrue to the Framers’ original understanding and unsuited to the exigencies of modern war. The New York Times’s [editorialists'] solution is the equivalent of using leeches on a patient with the common cold. The right constitutional answer (as I explain in this morning’s Wall Street Journal) is to toss the empty symbolism of the Resolution and meaningless lawsuits aside and let them fight it out using their own powers — commander-in-chief versus the purse — in the political process.

Every President since that bad resolution was passed has refused to accept the premise of the legislation, which basically says that Congress can dictate to the President the specifics of committing our military to hostilities abroad. Congress has the power of the purse, that is their power in regards to these hostilities, any other powers are unconstitutional. But even though every President has not accepted the Resolution, they have all consulted Congress and stayed within the bounds of the reporting requirements.

Not so with Obama.

An when it was convenient, Obama and his fans would rail against the behavior of Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan, calling his actions unilateral and imperial, even though he DID consult with Congress and the reporting requirements.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Republican President not consulting Congress as he waged war would be raked over the coals.

Not so now.

The hypocrisy is mind blowing.

Exit thought:

Just one of the three major differences between Barack H. Obama’s wars and Bush’s wars:

• Whatever one may think of how the peace has gone, it’s impossible to dispute that George W. Bush won the “major combat operations” phase of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. (I argue he also won the peace, as both countries are markedly better off, more democratic, and less a threat to the United States than either was on January 20th, 2001.)

• When George W. went to war, he led from in front; he didn’t try to “lead from behind.” He picked the generals, the strategy, he got out front and forcefully defended them, he promised victory, and he delivered. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that Afghanistan and Iraq were America’s wars… not NATO’s, not the UN’s, not France’s or Germany’s. And Bush stud up like a man and personally took the political hits as the wars “dragged on” longer than the unrealistic expectations of American voters.

• And again, whatever the merits of Afghanistan and Iraq, and whatever qualms or second-thoughts the Left might have about them now, the indisputable fact remains that Bush got congressional approval for each, as the Constitution requires: A congressional “authorization for the use of military force” has been held to be legally the same as a declaration of war.

As pathetic as the economy is under Obamunism, it’s the president’s national-security policy that most clearly illuminates how incompetent, inattentive, flighty, hysterical, fickle, and in general, unserious his team is. The entire administration of President B.O. is like unto a ditsy blonde in a TV sitcom — think Chrissy Snow in Three’s Company — but without the honesty or heart of gold such farcical characters usually display.

I can only say, once again, thank God for Ronald Reagan; if a dolt of the caliber of Barack Obama had been up against a Brezhnev or Gorbachev, we’d all be drinking vodka and whistling “Polyushko Polye.”

This treaty should of died a long time ago:

Russia, Japan and Canada told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US reiterated it would remain outside the treaty, European diplomats have said.

The future of the Kyoto Protocol has become central to efforts to negotiate reductions of carbon emissions under the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose annual meeting will take place in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9.

Developed countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. They agreed to legally binding commitments on curbing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Those pledges expire at the end of next year. Developing countries say a second round is essential to secure global agreements.

But the leaders of Russian, Japan and Canada confirmed they would not join a new Kyoto agreement, the diplomats said.

They argued that the Kyoto format did not require developing countries, including China, the world’s No. 1 carbon emitter, to make targeted emission cuts.

At last Thursday’s G8 dinner the US President, Barack Obama, confirmed Washington would not join an updated Kyoto Protocol, the diplomats said.

You have to love this part of the article tho….everything is Bush’s fault:

The US, the second-largest carbon emitter, signed the protocol in 1997 but in 2001 the then president, George W. Bush, said he would not put it to the Senate for ratification.

Yeaaah.

Clinton told Gore to sign the stupid thing but the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution in 1997, passing 95-0, which stated the Treaty shouldn’t be signed. So CLINTON never sent it on to the Senate. Bush never signed it, and neither is Obama.

So why throw that line in there other then to highlight their BDS?

Either way, the scam known as Kyoto is dead.

And Cap n’ Trade in California may be dying as well.

Good news all around.

Obama is doing what he does best. Proceed with whatever he wants to do and if the law tells him he can’t do it, then just ignore it. This time he is doing it with the War Powers Act and his hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, is calling him, and Congress, out for their refusal to do what is necessary:

Obama is on the horns of a dilemma. As a candidate, he said the president does not have the power to go to war on his own except in cases of actual or likely attack. But if he were to ask Congress to authorize the Libyan intervention, he would probably be rebuffed. So he’s chosen to simply ignore the law.

But ignoring laws is not what presidents promise to do when they are sworn in. Unless Obama wants to make the case that it’s unconstitutional, as some experts think, he should act (belatedly) to follow it or explain why the Libya operations don’t qualify. The latter would be a stretch, but maybe Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to elaborate on his theory that Libya is merely a “limited kinetic action,” not a war.

Still, the fault here is not all Obama’s. He has reason to think a president can get away with taking unilateral military action, since Congress is usually reluctant to object. It’s easier for lawmakers to carp than to take action that involves shouldering responsibility for the ensuing outcome.

If Congress wants to assert itself on Libya, it always has the option to pass legislation cutting off funding for those operations, which have cost some $750 million so far. Or it could pass a resolution demanding that Obama pull out our forces. Either step would probably force the administration to turn over the mission to NATO.

Some argue about the constitutionality of the act, and it’s something that should be discussed, but nonetheless it’s the law of the land and Obama appears to be ignoring it. He did send a letter though asking for “support” but he did not mention the War Powers Act:

President Obama sent a letter late last week to congressional leaders endorsing a resolution being drafted in the Senate that expresses support for military action in Libya.

Whether the House debate would focus on a measure supportive or critical of the mission is unclear. Several members of the House, however, have introduced amendments that would restrict funding for the operation.

While Congress would be unlikely to vote down a resolution supporting a U.S. military mission, any measure of support is likely to face opposition from a group of liberals and conservatives who have said Obama erred by deploying the military without explicit congressional backing.

Will Congress push back this time and force him to comply with the WPA? If they do it would be the height of irony that the first challenge in court regarding the War Powers Act will be because of the actions of the man who criticized Bush’s wars….wars that DID have Congressional approval.

And this war does not.

This video has been up on the featured video section for a bit but thought it good enough to give it some added publicity. Bill destroys so many of the myths the left have propagated over the years about George Bush, Iraq, waterboarding and the War on Terror…Watch the whole thing, it’ll be well worth your time.