Wouldn’t it be just wonderful to have all the answers without really knowing the questions or the facts before hand? It appears the we now have a replacement for the Great Karnak. Okay, for those of you, including my kids, that didn’t grow up with this hilarious Johnny Carson character, I’ve included a youtube below so you can get the drift of the rest of this post. For those of you that remember him, I’ve included the youtube below so you can get all nice and nostalgic and hopefully, be very afraid.
So, here’s my shot at the schtick.
The answer is: the Great Obama.
And the question in the envelope? Who thinks they have all the answers before knowing the facts or even the question?
I just made my post dinner, wine-thirty, rounds of favorite blogs. No Quarter is always high on my list. I did this right after speaking to my dad who lives in Seattle and is a true-red Republican, fox-watching, member of the greatest generation kinda guy. Maybe it was because we were just talking about my evolving attitude towards Fox News, but we were discussing Britt Hume’s coming retirement, media bias, and the election.
My dad insists that Obama has some kind of personality disorder that is causing him to think that he is already elected president.
So, this interview was posted at No Quarter. I started synthesizing all of these discussions into a more coherent framework since this is one of the occupational hazards of being a social scientist.
Does Obama really think it’s just a matter of waiting out a few inconvenient months? Has he become the Great Carnak or is he exhibiting some kind of personality disorder?
Here’s the interview that got me thinking that maybe my Dad wasn’t all that off base.
The Answer is: The Great OBAMA.
And the question in the envelope? Who thinks he’s already elected president AND knows all the answers to the questions that reporters may ask and concerns that generals may have.
Transcript . Barack Obama ABC Interview . July 21, 2008
ABC’s Terry Moran: “And then we sat down with [Barack Obama] to talk about what has become an open disagreement between military commanders here and Obama, over his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq on a 16-month timetable. Did General Petraeus talk about military concerns about your timetable?”
Barack Obama: “You know, I would characterize the concerns differently. I don’t think that they’re deep concerns about the notion of a pullout per se. There are deep concerns about, from their perspective, a timetable that doesn’t take into account what they anticipate might be some sort of changing conditions. And this is what I mean when I say we play different roles. My job is to think about the national security interests as a whole, and to have to weigh and balance risks, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. Their job is just to get the job done here. And I completely understand that.”
Moran: “But the difference is real. Commanders here want withdrawals to be based on conditions on the ground. Obama emphasizes his timetable, but he insists he would remain flexible. I’m going to try to pin you down on this.”
Obama: “Here let me say this, though, Terry, because, you know, what I will refuse to do, and I think that, you know “
Moran: “How do you know what I’m going to ask?”
Obama: “Well, then if I don’t get it right, then you can ask it again.”
Moran: “All right.”
Obama: “Is to get boxed in into what I consider two false choices, which is either I have a rigid timeline of such and such a date, come hell or high water, we’ve gotten our combat troops out, and I am blind to anything that happens in the intervening six months or 16 months. Or, alternatively, I am completely deferring to whatever the commanders on the ground says, which is what George Bush says he’s doing, in which case I’m not doing my job as commander-in-chief.”
There are two things I jumped on immediately. One is that Obama presumed to know what the Reporter was going to ask. The second is the all-telling “I’m not doing my job as commander-in-chief.”
My first instinct, was to think, this guy really does think he’s already got the presidency in the bag. I thought the seal was over-the-top. I really thought the entourage to Europe and the Middle East was a bit staged. The acceptance speech in the stadium is outrageous! The speech by the Brandenburg gate was trying to channel the Kennedy vibe. Michelle’s even been known to deck herself out like Jackie. But, sheesh, I’m beginning to gather enough evidence that I really think he MUST think he has this in the bag. He’s already president in his mind. It’s a done deal, in his mind. He even thinks he knows what other folks want and are going to ask now. I think that it’s gone beyond just staging Obama to look presidential and Kennedyesque.
The Answer is: The Great Obama
And the Question in the Envelope: Who believes his own hype beyond the point representing sanity and the safety of our country?
UPDATE: I guess even the candidate’s advisors think he’s already president too!
At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States.
“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.
“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.
“He is going to talk about the issues as an individual … not as a candidate, but as an individual, as a senator,” the adviser added.
Please sign Planned Parenthood’s Petition to stop the Bush encroachment on birth control. The Petition states:
Planned Parenthood is gravely concerned that the Bush administration is considering a new HHS rule that would undermine women’s access to health care and information. The rule would allow federal funding that is specifically designed to prevent unintended pregnancy and promote reproductive health to instead be used by facilities and providers that refuse to offer comprehensive birth control and reproductive health care services.
LAMusing asks us to join in the PUMA effort to insure top DNC officials know we don’t intend to fall in line with the unity pony in its efforts to shut out all serious debate at the DNC convention.
“In a sign that senior Democratic officials remain deeply concerned that post-primary bitterness could imperil Barack Obama’s chances, two top Democratic officials have emailed a sharply-worded letter to major donors and other leading Dems confessing “fatigue and irritation” at those withholding full support from Obama and demanding that they get behind him “without conditions or demands.””
The letter is signed by Donald Fowler, a former DNC chair and DNC member-at-large who was one of Hillary’s most prominent supporters. Alice Germond, the Secretary of the DNC, is also a signatory.
LAMusing suggests we let Alice and Donald know we live in a democracy.
You can write a response to Mr. Fowler at don@fowlercommunications.com.
You can write a response to Ms. Germond and mail it to:
Honorable Alice Germond, Secretary
Democratic National Committee
430 South Capital Street, Southeast
Washington, D. C. 20003-4024
or e-mail her at germonda@dnc.org
In your salutation, the proper form of address is “Madame Secretary” after that I’d say just let her have it!!!
If you’re more up to writing to Celebrities, you might want to write Oprah and ask why she’s scrubbed her site of politics and her big show of worship for Obama during the primary. Is it because Obama turned out to be bad for Business?
Oprah Shuts Down Website, Scrubs All Political Discussion – Media Silent
“Barack Obama is not the only one revising their website. Oprah Winfrey seems to have gotten in on the action.
Last year, Oprah Winfrey came out and endorsed Barack Obama, calling him “The One,” an allusion to either Jesus or to Neo of The Matrix. I am not sure which.”
For more Puma GROWLS be sure to go to the Just Say No Deal Link on the left. Let’s make sure the DNC and the MSM see some real activity prior to the convention. Speaking of conventions, I can’t make the PUMA convention in Washington, DC, but if you can sign up and attend at the same site.
Let’s try to stop the Assault on Democracy while we still have time!
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No one can question the role of the MSM as fluffers for Obama any more. Senator John McCain spent the last leg of the primary season tromping around the middle east with Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman in tow. I recall there was media present because Lieberman had to correct McCain several times about the difference between Al Quaeda and Shite insurgents supported by Iran. However, I do not recall that the trailers included ALL THREE Anchors of each of the non cable networks. This is the same group that I used to rely on for truth about Vietnam, Nixon, and Watergate. Wither art thou Walter Cronkite?
This is an even bigger shocker! I heard this from Greta Van Susteren on FOX. Oh, the SHAME! I’m admitting to watching FOX now in public! I first learned that the three amigos will be trotting around the globe with the anointed one from Greta on Fox after I got home from teaching a freshman seminar on Monetary Policy. I did not read it first from my subscription to the NY Times. I didn’t even hear it from my ol’ ninth ward slummin’, Vaughn’s visitin’, Ketel one drinkin’ friend Anderson Cooper or his producer Jamie! I’m still trying to find my bearings right now because I can’t BELIEVE I heard this from GRETA (http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2008/07/17/oh-oh-how-does-the-media-yes-the-media-explain-this-one/) before I heard it from Anderson Cooper or read it in the TIMES but I also have to say, I think the world is upside down at the moment. I think the gravitational pull of the earth has been disrupted somehow.
I’ll quote from the NY TImes out of habit and the fact I pay damn good money for my subscription.
Media Stars Will Accompany Obama Overseas
WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s trip to Iraq last March was a low-key affair: With a small retinue of reporters chasing him abroad, the NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on Mr. McCain’s visit there from New York, including it in the “in other political news” portion of his newscast.
Ida Mae Astute/ABC
Anchors Charles Gibson of ABC, left, Katie Couric of CBS and Brian Williams of NBC. They are working out the details of on-site interviews with Senator Barack Obama when he goes overseas.
But when Senator Barack Obama heads for Iraq and other places overseas this summer, Mr. Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two network evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Mr. Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Mr. Obama on successive nights.
And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Mr. Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seatmates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Mr. Obama’s first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. A “Meet the Press” interview is also being planned.
The extraordinary coverage planned for Mr. Obama’s trip, though in part solicited by aides, reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first black presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.
But the coverage also feeds into concerns in Mr. McCain’s campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the news media are imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season.
Well, we know it’s an oddity when Obama takes a trip over seas to learn something, let alone something remotely related to working. We know that his senatorial duties overseeing the NATO commitment to Afghanistan have been scarce to nonexistent. We know now that Obama missed many of the higher level meetings on Iraq and when he did attend 1 out of 3 meetings, he asked about something other than Afghanistan. He never held a meeting for the sub-committee for which he holds the chairmanship. While trying to back Obama up, Joe Biden actually lets slip how badly Obama’s carried out any senatorial duties at all. But what do you expect from some one who has gotten more than full time pay for holding down part time jobs? Did we mention these were part time jobs he can’t even show up for?
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his allies have been hitting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, for not holding any hearings to examine the role of NATO in Afghanistan in his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs.
“He’s never had a hearing,” McCain said Tuesday, “so I am not surprised that all he has done is said, ‘Well, we need more troops.'”
In a letter to Obama earlier this week, McCain-backing Sen. Jim DeMint R- SC, wrote, “With oversight of NATO relations and its role in Afghanistan, I believe it is time for us to focus closely on these issues,” DeMint wrote, suggesting a meeting of the subcommittee upon Obama’s return from a much anticipated trip abroad.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., had previously told Meet the Press that “the reason Obama didn’t hold a hearing on NATO, I chair the committee. Every one of those committee hearings are held at full committee.”
But today Biden decided to take his defense of Obama one step further, writing to DeMint that there have been plenty of hearings on European Affairs, they’ve just been held at the “full committee level.”
“On the particular issue of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan,” Biden wrote, “We have held three Full Committee hearings in the last 22 months: one under Senator Lugar’s chairmanship (September 21, 2006: “From Coalition to ISAF Command in Afghanistan: The Purpose and Impact of the Transition”), and two undermine (March 8, 2007: “Afghanistan: Time for a New Strategy?” and January 21, 2008: “Afghanistan: A Plan to Turn the Tide?”). At all three of these hearings, we were fortunate enough to have the expert testimony—in addition to other witnesses, both in and out of government— of former NATO commander and Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, Gen. James R. Jones (USMC, ret.).”
But Biden’s letter brought attention to the fact that Obama did not attend two of those three hearings — and for the third, on March 8, 2007, Obama only asked one question, one unrelated to Afghanistan.
So we have the least knowledgable person on earth about the status of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan whose knowledge basically comes from what he reads from teleprompters leading three other folks with limited knowledge that basically comes from what they read from teleprompters on a tour of the world. I now know completely where that old phrase ‘the blind leading the blind’ originates.
Come some one please wake me from this extremely bad dream. Especially the one where I flip the channel to AC and watch him announce how Bill Clinton is fully behind the Obamanation from Illionois. Hell must’ve frozen over. I’m watching Fox and Bill Clinton is saying polite things on tv about Barack Obama and oh, did I mention crude oil has gone below $130 a barrel?
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I was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Omaha. My mother used to take us to every pow-wow she could find. We frequently travelled the west and the southwest. I climbed the chaco canyon and hiked the trail of tears. I have an enduring respect and awe for Native Americans. From summers spent in New Mexico near Ghost ranch or winters in Mesa, Arizonia where my parents retired, I take every chance I have to discover what I can about the folks who were the first Americans. Many folks have been thrown under the bus by the Obama campaign during this election season. It is easy to find their voices and their stories on the internet. I know there are many many groups questioning his authenticity concerning issues of poverty and respect. There are none more deserving of such conversations than our first Americans. This is one of the many wonderful videos I have found that raise questions, issues, and objections concerning the Obama candidacy. Please listen and learn from these U.S. citizens who have been heros of our wars and protectors of our natural resources. If any one deserves the American dream, it is the Native American.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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