Bloodthirsty Liberal

The young Obama’s preferred weed:

As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.” To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled.

Along with TA, Barry popularized the concept of “roof hits”: when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.

The Barf Couch earned its name early in the first trimester when a freshman across the hall from Obama [in the Haines Hall Annex dorm at Occidental College] drank himself into a stupor and threw up all over himself and the couch. In the manner of pallbearers hoisting a coffin, a line of Annexers lifted the tainted sofa with the freshman aboard and toted it out the back door and down four steps to the first concrete landing on the way to the parking lot. A day later, the couch remained outside in the sun, resting on its side with cushions off (someone had hosed it clean), and soon it was back in the hallway nook.

What is significant to me is not that Obama was a raging pot-head. Dreams From Bill Ayers’ Imagination told us that he smoked, drank, and snorted with reckless abandon. But what percentage of people know this? Why has the press not only ignored the story, but buried it? Why do we know more about George Bush’s drinking than Obama’s weed whacking?

PS: There’s a lot more at the link, all of it rather desperate. Rule-bound, selfish, obsessive—I thought drugs were about escape, not doubling down. Obama’s high school experience sounds like Parris Island for potheads.

Do you like museums? Aggie’s a nut for them, if I may so divulge. When I’m in New York, I almost always save time for a trip to the Frick. Not only for the brilliance of its collection, but I like to support the fruits of raw capitalism.

[As Wikipedia notes: "Once known by his critics as “the most hated man in America," — Portfolio.com named Frick one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time"— he has long been vilified by the public and historians for his ruthlessness and lack of morality in business." As opposed to Mark Zuckerberg, say?]

Anyhow, there’s a pretty cool online museum of discredited columnists spouting outdated ideas. It’s called the New York Times op ed page (though it costs you if you visit more than 20 time a month, I believe).

Here’s one of the exhibits: thomas absurdium friedmanus

Political power is always a double-edged sword. The more of it you amass, the more people expect you to use it to do big things, and, when you don’t, the more ineffectual you look. That’s the dilemma in which Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel finds himself. He avoided early elections by adding a new centrist coalition partner to his right-wing cabinet, giving him control of 96 of the 120 seats in Parliament. There are Arab dictators who didn’t have majorities that big after rigged elections. What is unclear is whether Bibi assembled these multitudes to be better able to do nothing or be better able to do something important to secure Israel’s future.

The stakes could not be higher — for him and Israel. Ami Ayalon, the former commander of Israel’s Navy and later its domestic intelligence service, put it to me this way: “I imagine a book called ‘Jewish Leaders in Recent History’ that one day Bibi’s grandson will be reading. What will it say? In one version, I imagine the section about the State of Israel will say that Herzl envisaged it, Ben-Gurion built it and Netanyahu secured it as a Jewish democracy.” But there is another version that could also be written, added Ayalon. “This version will describe Herzl and Ben-Gurion in the same way, but it will say of Netanyahu that he was the only Israeli leader who had the political power and he missed his moment in history” — and, thereby, created a situation in which Israel is not a Jewish democracy anymore. “Now is his moment to decide.”

Now, I don’t know this Ami Ayalon, but Danny Ayalon (Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs) feels quite differently. (You can see him answering a question on “settlements” here.) Ami comes from the military and domestic intelligence, but that means nothing in political terms. Just as being Jewish means nothing in terms of Israeli politics, neither does being Israeli.

And if you aren’t suspicious about why Friedman’s citation of his remarks drop in and out of quotation marks, you should be. I don’t know what his beliefs are, but I sure know Friedman’s. And they are unpleasant in the extreme:

… Bibi — either through brilliant bluffing that he will bomb Iran or a sincere willingness to do so — has managed to make stopping Iran’s nuclear program a top U.S. and global priority.

As if stopping Iran’s nuclear program isn’t a US and global priority on its own? As if “Bibi” is a puppeteer, making global leaders dance to his tune? How is Friedman’s language different from Walt, Mearsheimer, Buchanan, and all the other stinking antisemites who see tentacles and webs and mysterious cabalistic forces?

But he’s just getting started:

So what to do? Here I think Ayalon has the best new idea: “constructive unilateralism.”

In an essay in this newspaper on April 24, Ayalon and two colleagues argued that Israel should first declare its willingness to return to negotiations anytime and that it has no claims of sovereignty on any West Bank lands east of its security barrier. It should then end all settlement construction east of that barrier and in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and establish an attractive housing and relocation plan to help the 100,000 Jewish settlers who live east of the barrier to relocate within Israel’s recognized borders. The Israeli Army would remain in the West Bank until the conflict was resolved with a final-status agreement. And Israel would not physically force any citizens to leave until an agreement was reached, even though relocations could begin well before then. Such an initiative would radically change Israel’s image in the world, dramatically increase Palestinian incentives to negotiate and create a pathway for securing Israel as a Jewish democracy. And Bibi could initiate it tomorrow.

“Heroic peacemaking is over,” says Ayalon. It is time for “coordinated” and “constructive” unilateralism. The way is there. Does Bibi have the will?

So, this “constructive unilateralism” sounds like the pig “unilateral surrender” with lipstick smeared on. Israel is to take every step—backward, toward retrenchment and retreat—while nothing is required of the Arabs. Why, this is the Saudi plan, which Friedman also pimped, with a kippah on its head instead of a tablecloth. It is unilateral, all right, just as the relocation of Jews throughout history has been unilateral. With the exception of the founding of the state of Israel (and a period of American immigration history), such relocations have been expulsions, something Friedman & Co. evidently want to see happen again, in the Jewish state. Never mind the return of the Sinai, never mind the Jewish expulsions from Gaza (turning it into Lebanon-lite), the West Bank must be made judenrein, too.

The Arabs have been offered a peace along these lines before, and have rejected it. That, to me, is a lucky favor. Israel still has a chance to extend its sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria (my preference), or at least over the largest Jewish populations. That, too, would be “unilateral” and “constructive”, and with the benefit that Friedman’s ghettoization lacks: secure borders.

I told you he was a museum relic. As with the Killing Field museum I cited earlier, not all exhibits are pretty pictures.

PS: Friedman also lies when he makes reference to demographics. Israel would still be a majority Jewish democracy if it annexed Judea and Samaria today. And birthrates currently favor the Jews holding on to their majority for the foreseeable future.

Does this include NPR? Please?

Mitt Romney likes PBS, but says it’s time for the public broadcasting television network to stop relying on taxpayer funding and find private income sources instead.

“I think there will be things that we think are nice programs, and we’ll say to ourselves, is this program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?” Romney said in an interview with Time magazine’s Mark Halperin on Wednesday.

“I like PBS. I’d like my grandkids to be able to watch PBS,” the presumptive GOP nominee said. “But I’m not willing to borrow money from China and make my kids have to pay the interest on that, and my grandkids, over generations, as opposed to saying to PBS, look, you’re going to have to raise more money from charitable contributions or from advertising.”

I don’t have strong feelings about PBS, but I am beyond irritated with the constant bias against conservatives on NPR. It is outrageous and I don’t want to pay for it any longer.

- Aggie

I’ve taken to listening to NPR. I’m not sure why, or even when this deviant behavior began, but I’ve developed an interest in the culture. For example, a couple days ago, on the BBC News Hour, which NPR presents locally, I heard a wonderfully obnoxious interview/discussion between a male British vegan and a female American vegetarian. The interviewer was quite fascinated in what sorts of people each of them would consider dating. The vegan wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone who consumed meat or animal products. What if he kissed someone who had animal parts in her teeth? The vegetarian said that she didn’t care, she would potentially date a butcher, even a hunter! Maybe on the hunter. Plus she herself consumes fish. The vegan bitterly explained that consuming fish caused great suffering to the fish. There was a certain level of animosity between them, and to my ears, the vegetarian at least sounded sane. But then, but then… the vegetarian pipes up, rather defensively I thought, and proclaims, I would date a hunter but there is one person I would never date – a Republican.

Ew, right?

So the following day I heard a bit of an interview with Tom Ashbrook, who does a talk show for our local NPR affiliate, and the subject was the fact that there were more babies-of-color than babies-of-white born in the US last year. Mr. Ashbrook was interviewing some “experts” on race relations. The part I heard had to do with the novel idea that young people across races are in more agreement with their peers on this topic, than with elders within their own “race”, their specific “of-color”. (Strange, I thought. Young people feel differently than older people, and more like each other. I don’t recall that phenomena in the 60s and 70s.) Then, out of the clear blue sky, an arrow sailed into my car window, just missing my jugular. The Tea Party, we learned, is both older than 40, and racist. But they will die. To be replaced by young people who are not at all racist. And all will be good. Seriously, they talked about a racist Tea Party that would die soon. I am not exaggerating.

Oh my, I thought. The Tea Party has nothing to do with race, everything to do with fiscal responsibility. Why is a federally tax supported radio station putting on programming that slams perfectly reasonable citizens? Or, put another way, why are we certain that on NPR we won’t hear a sentence like: The Black Church is both older and racist. But they will die. … Or one person I would never date is a Democrat? I would never even hang out with a Democrat.

Finally, last night I heard a bit of Terry Gross interviewing an African American actor. Mostly what they discussed was race. That’s fine, except when you consider the context that all is race on that station. Is this about the election, or do they really just talk about race all day, every day? I am reminded of the period in the 90′s when John Grisham books were very popular. At one point, it looked as if his were the only books that could possibly sell – ever. All anyone wanted to read was legal thrillers.

So I thought it might be fun to remember and record some of these nasty little attacks that our tax dollars provide. If you, or any of your friends, ever listen to this claptrap, we would like to hear from you. Send us a short description of the offensive, race-baiting, tearing us apart from the inside-out, conversation and we’ll start a regular feature.

Thanks,

Aggie

I’m having a hard time disputing even one of them:

What Fox News chief Roger Ailes said at Ohio University on Monday, according to tweets from journalist and media lawyer Jonathan W. Peters:

One thing that qualifies me to run a journalism organization is the fact that I don’t have a journalism degree.

I don’t know if Pres Obama was smart in school. Haven’t seen his transcripts. (Question) No, Fox is not trying to get his transcripts.

Media Matters writes all of the primetime programming for MSNBC. All of it. That’s what a recently published book says.

The first thing I’d change about America would be requiring Congresspeople to follow the same laws we do. They get lots of freebies.

The Internet is an interesting thing, and it will keep rolling out, and eventually convergence will come. I’m watching it.

Jon Stewart is a comedian. He wouldn’t do well without Fox. And he basically has admitted to me, in a bar, that he’s a socialist.

One thing about liberals is they believe they’re always right. Fox tries to fill a different niche: providing alternative viewpoints.

I’ve killed one story, when Dean was running for president. His kid got arrested, and I said we shouldn’t run it. There was no point.

MSNBC is out of the news business. Brian Williams, a sincere newsman, wouldn’t want to be caught dead over there.

I would love for the AP to go back to being a neutral news source. But it slants stories, slants headlines. It tips to the left.

The New York Times is a cesspool of bias.

The security apparatus around me is nothing like the one described in Rolling Stone, Esquire. But I do get threats, most contrived.

Many years ago, I was offered a lot of money to stop doing what I was doing – to stop being effective in politics. I turned it down.

…

I’m not sure what my ideology is today. I guess I’m more conservative, because on individual issues I have more conservative views.

Any newsroom that doesn’t have diversity of thought is in danger of failing.

The only difference between Fox talk shows and those on CNN or MSNBC is that Fox invites liberal voices to engage in dialogue.

Yeah, I got nothin’. That said, the only time I ever watch Fox is when I’m in a hotel room. If I want to watch morning news (as opposed to local radio stations—sports and conservative talk—that I listen to at home), what choice do I have but Fox & Friends? Of course they’re biased—they make no pretense otherwise. But do you expect me to watch the smug mugs on Today, GMA, or whatever godless entity CNN is broadcasting at that hour?

Besides, he’s right about everything.

PS: An update at the link notes that Ailes regrets the NY Times comment. I hope that’s because it disrespects cesspool builders and maintenance people. They do God’s work, as opposed to Times editors and columnists.

We don’t trade in the nasty innuendo and racist demagoguery surrounding the Reverend Jeremiah Wright here, no sir, not us, uh-uh, no way.

BUT, we allow that others do:

Our friend Doug Schoen, the Democratic pollster, is a political centrist, ideologically much closer to the post-1994 Bill Clinton than to Barack Obama. That makes all the more troubling his advocacy of government censorship of political speech, the kind of expression that is at the core of First Amendment protection.

Schoen finds it “more than just disquieting” but “shameful and embarrassing” that, as the New York Times reported (and we noted) last week, Chicago Cubs part-owner Joe Ricketts considered funding an anti-Obama super PAC ad that would have reminded voters about the president’s “spiritual mentor,” Jeremiah Wright. Under political pressure, Obama in 2008 repudiated the America-hating pastor, whose views even the New York Times concedes are “clearly racist.”

“Speaking frankly,” Schoen writes, “racially divisive negative advertisements of this sort do not belong in a presidential election. Whether one supports the president or not, he should be judged on his record, and an ad hominem attack of any sort should have no home in the public arena.”

He would like to use the power of the government to suppress this speech of which he disapproves, as he has made clear in other columns. His complaint about the Ricketts ad that wasn’t shows just what a pernicious idea this is and why the Supreme Court was right to uphold free speech in the celebrated case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Schoen and the rest of the press are discovering that the marketplace of ideas functions like any other market: there is supply and demand, and no amount of manipulation or regulation can succeed in stifling the natural direction of information toward wider dissemination. In the old days, sure—even among the mainstream media today—information unflattering to the press’s preferred candidate (and boy do they have their preferences) was buried, ignored, or locked in a broom closet (literally). JFK’s sexual dalliances, to choose the most obvious example, would make Bill Clinton look like the before picture for a Cialis ad.

Jeremiah Wright would not be an issue today if the press in 2008 had fully explored his beliefs and his significance in Obama’s life and personal development. I still don’t know what Obama knew about Wright and when he knew it—but I know he lied and is lying today. He lied about Ayers and Dohrn, stonewalled on his birth certificate, and still refuses to release some of the most basic background material that other candidates routinely release.

But all of this stuff has been smuggled as it if were pornography from under the counter, or samizdat publications from behind the Iron Curtain. We are made to feel dirty just for asking WTF about “God damn America” and “US of KKKA” and “America’s chickens… [can't forget the pause] are coming home to roost!”

Politicians since Nixon (and certainly before) have learned the hard way that it’s not the crime, but the cover-up, that does them in. Obama committed no crime in befriending a racist minister and two former members of the Weathermen. But the press has committed the highest crime of all in suppressing the truth—often with such determination and contempt as would have made Stalin nod in appreciation.

We will not join with those small-minded bigots who try to portray the President—our President—as “The Other” because of his funny name (Barry) or the way he chooses to honor his God. No, siree, not us.

If the New York Times can pick and choose when to mention Reverend Wright’s name, so can we:

A report in The New York Times on Thursday exposed a secret plan by Republican strategists and financiers to rekindle questions about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Mr. Obama’s onetime pastor, and his angry black-power sermons.

Perhaps this news story might justify a three day roll out if, in fact, that narrative were accurate. Sadly, for the New York Times and Barack Obama’s campaign, it is not.

Despite what the Times claims, the undisputed facts are these:

1. There was no “secret plan” by “strategists” or “financiers” to push the Wright story,

2. The super pac in question asked advertisers to bring them ad ideas focused on the federal debt,

3. The ad man who pitched the idea to the super pac conceded that the group did not want proposals that dealt with anything other than fiscal issues,

4. Mitt Romney and his campaign had nothing to do with anything involving this ad.

5. The Republican Party had nothing to do with anything involving this pitch.

If the Republican Party thinks it can outsource its attack ads on the President’s —our President’s—beloved family pastor, they are sorely mistaken.

Reverend Wright’s “black power” sermons have no place here.

Wright’s love of humankind is evident to all who bring an open heart:

You’ll have to go elsewhere to indulge your twisted fantasies in any purported or alleged antisemitic diatribes.

One thing we can all agree on: there is no place for this sort of thing in the nation’s body politic. If there is a separation of church and state, let’s get this kind of theology out of the White House now and forever.

Great piece.

It used to be a lot simpler. As E.C. Bentley deftly summarized it in 1905:

“Geography is about maps.

But Biography is about chaps.”

But that was then, and now Biography is also about maps. For example, have you ever thought it would be way cooler to have been born in colonial Kenya?

At the link he ties Warren and Obama together in a neat little package.

- Aggie

It’s a damn shame:

This evening “Piers Morgan Tonight” welcomed Mark NeJame with new details on George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing Trayvon Martin.

Joining Piers Morgan for a live interview, the CNN legal analyst shared an exclusive photograph which suggests Zimmerman has black heritage:

“The man in the middle is apparently George Zimmerman’s great-grandfather. The woman above him, is in fact his grandmother who is half black,” explained NeJame. “And the little child in the gentleman’s lap, is his mother. So we see that he really has significant multiracial, multicultural roots.”

In a case ripe with racial undertones, NeJame suggests that Thursday’s photo may help the Zimmerman camp refute theories that Martin’s death was a result of profiling and bigotry:

“Talking to people that know him, I have changed my position,” revealed the guest. “People can come up with whatever conclusions they want. But from looking at the facts and the evidence, I don’t think there is a racial motive in there.”

Odd how this hasn’t been all over the news, as the original “story” (and I do mean story) was.

And another thing you won’t hear:

A medical report by George Zimmerman’s family doctor shows the neighborhood watch volunteer was diagnosed with a fractured nose, two black eyes and two lacerations on the back of the head after his fatal confrontation with Trayvon Martin.

So, if my math is correct, George Zimmerman is 1/16th black—which makes him twice as black as Betty Buckskin is Indian. (And infinitely more so if you demand documentary proof—but since did Democrats demand that?)

As Rush said today, if Barack Obama had another son, he might look like George Zimmerman.

Actually, Zimmerman takes after Obama a whole lot more than Trayvon Martin did.

Trayvon Martin should be alive today; it’s a shame he is not. But don’t believe what the media tell you. They start lying right after “good evening” (if not before).

I mean “evolved”! Read: “So Evolved”

Of course we all know what the winner was:

[image via Moonbattery]

Again, Aggie and I support gay marriage (as recognized by the state—churches are on their own), but we don’t go mincing and prancing around boasting how evolved we are. No one calls us the first “gay blog” (well, maybe some unevolved critics).

But if you think Newspuke only went gay after being absorbed into The Daily Beast, you don’t remember. Senior correspondent Jonathan Alter had a book deal before the election returns were counted to deliver a hagiography on the first 100 days. I think it sold fewer than 100 copies, but they’ve been in the bag (his bag) from the beginning.

PS: There goes Obama claiming credit again for something he didn’t do (see Aggie’s post below). Even if Obama were as gay as Tom Cruise at an Elton John concert, he’d still be the second gay president. Abraham Lincoln allegedly got there (so to speak) first. (Third, if you believe the rumors about James K. Polk.)

NY Times poll

Hah!

President Obama’s claim that the GOP is mounting a war on women has proven to be a failure. A month into his assault on the Republicans and Mitt Romney, the new CBS-New York Times poll shows that the GOP presidential candidate now leads among women–and men.

Since April, women have gone from strongly backing Obama to endorsing Romney. In April, Obama held a 49 percent to 43 percent lead among women. That has now flipped to 46 percent backing Romney with 44 percent for Obama, an 8-point switch.

Ironically, Romney’s support among men has dropped, but he still edges Obama 45 percent to 42 percent.

And here’s a surprise: Despite the media hyping the so-called war on women, no major outlet today noticed Romney’s new lead with women voters.

“This is unbelievable,” said conservative consultant Greg Mueller. “The CBS story manages to not mention the change in women numbers,” he said, adding sarcastically. “No media bias here — Obama is getting fluffy stories about his commencement speech to women at Barnard — so we better bury the reality.”

They are going to go ballistic if Romney wins. Should we stock up on food and bottled water?

- Aggie

Not that there’s anything wrong with that:

“‘Let the games begin,” Tina Brown said last week after Time Magazine released its controversial breastfeeding cover.

Brown, whose tenure as editor at Newsweek has seen an array of controversial covers, will respond with the above, pegged to Andrew Sullivan’s piece on Obama’s support for same-sex marriage: “The First Gay President.”

If Newsweek wanted to deliver an honest and direct response, it would have portrayed Obama suckling an infant (the first lactating president) swaddled in the American flag to symbolize the growing ranks of Americans who are forced (and encouraged!) to nurse off the public teat.

Obama is the first gay president, Clinton was the first black president; I guess John Edwards would have been the first monogamous president.

The media has contorted itself into irrelevance.