Stooge Face-Seeking.
The bloated, blame-shifting, humiliated Chavez stooge Manuel Zelaya, he of the ten gallon hat and the ten liter paranoia, has collapsed to the inevitable and agreed he will share power (make nice, act stupid) for the next few weeks with the Honduran Congress and military that thew him out of Tegulcigapa last summer. The new presidential election is Monday, November 29. Zelaya is not on the ballot, and is proscribed by the Constitution from running again. The interim president Roberto Michelletti is not on the ballot and never was. In the four weeks left, Zelaya can parade around Honduras trying to find his face which fell off some months back when he kissed Hugo Chavez too hard. The US State Department has saved no face either, since strangely it sided with Zelaya before it read the facts, or maybe after it decided to posture about democracy and law. Zelaya is a dopey rascal and buffoon. His conduct these last weeks camped in the Brazilian Embassay has revealed a petty, paranoid, anti-Jewish, parochial pol whose chief legacy is his whining on cue. Meanwhile, Roberto Michelletti, who took over as head of the Congress and interim head of state, is likely comfortable with the resolution because power-sharing means that Zelaya has no power over anyone or anything, a ceremonial blatherer, not authority over the Congress, nor the Supreme Court and most especially not the Army. After the election, Zelaya will be news for awhile as a celebrity loser, then oblivion as a Chavez messenger lad. A smart end for Honduras. No boycott, no reprisals, no conflagration, a recognized and orderly election and a cocky walk for having stood up to and outlasted the US, the UN, the OAS and Chavez. Viva Honduras! And, as the dry, news-reading AP announcer says, a welcome success for the the Obama foreign policy team. This is a strange compliment. Honduras is what POTUS has to show for ten months? Was this meant to be snarky by AP? Must sound better in Spanish. I will seek Mary O'Grady, WSJ, to comment asap. The short version is that the Obama administration got involved like a busy-body chump the first week, when POTUS and StateSec Clinton both opined that turning the dolt Zelaya out in his underwear was a coup, and that ever since POTUS has appeared either uninformed of the details or indifferent to his own early posturing. The smallest possible lesson might be that it is possible to defy the Obama administration and pay no price, even get a benefit, such as (shush) smiles.
Love Lists: filing this for a copy: fact-checking later:
RYAN TIMOTHY J 6/2/2009 9:29:12 AM 6/2/2009 10:12:20 AM MARGARET MCLAUGHLIN 1 OEOB 130
RYAN TIMOTHY 3/17/2009 6:30:00 PM POTUS 393 WH STATEFLOO ST.PATRICKSRECEPTIONGUESTS
RYAN TIMOTHY POTUS/FLOTUS 2018 WH SOUTHLAWN CONGRESSIONALLUAU.
RYAN TIMOTHY T POTUS 97 WH EASTROOM
RYAN TIMOTHY J 6/2/2009 2:00:45 PM 6/2/2009 2:50:21 PM KATHLEEN WINTERS 1 NEOB 4208
SACKMAN MURRAY L 7/20/2009 4:18:19 PM REGGIE LOVE 4 WH WW
SALISBURY LOIS 6/29/2009 11:28:10 AM 6/29/2009 12:40:34 PM DAVID POPE 5 OEOB 430A
SHABAZZ MALIK H 7/25/2009 9:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 311 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SHARPTON ALFRED C 5/26/2009 10:00:00 AM POTUS 136 WH EASTROOM EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
SHARPTON ALFRED 5/7/2009 12:42:35 PM POTUS 6 WH OVALOFFIC OVAL OFFICE MEETING ABOUT EDUCATION
SMITH BILLY A VISITORS OFFICE 155 WH RESIDENCE 11AM GROUP TOUR
SMITH BILLY A VISITORS OFFICE 232 WH RESIDENCE 8.30 AM GROUP TOUR
SMITH PAUL BINNIX 5 NEOB 3202
SMITH PAUL S 7/17/2009 8:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 257 WH RESIDENCE 830AM GROUP TOURS
SMITH PAUL POTUS 136 WH EASTROOM EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
SMITH PAUL M 5/26/2009 10:00:00 AM POTUS 136 WH EASTROOM EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
SMITH PAUL M 5/26/2009 10:00:00 AM POTUS 136 WH EASTROOM EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
SMITH PAUL POTUS 331 WH STATEFLOO LGBT RECEPTION ON THE STATE FLOOR
SMITH PAUL W VISITORS OFFICE 200 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SMITH RALPH N 7/22/2009 7:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 201 WH RESIDENCE 7:30AM GROUP TOURS
SMITH RALPH E 4/26/2009 4:35:33 PM 4/26/2009 6:11:23 PM LONG 6 WH WW
SMITH RALPH R 7/2/2009 1:05:10 PM 7/2/2009 3:09:41 PM KIM FORD 19 OEOB 235
SMITH RALPH R 1/28/2009 9:37:25 AM TINA TCHEN 43 OEOB 350
SMITH RALPH R 3/25/2009 10:50:02 AM 3/25/2009 12:03:02 PM TINA TCHEN 2 WH WW
SMITH RALPH 3/27/2009 4:49:01 PM 3/27/2009 5:45:35 PM DAVID WASHINGTON 1 OEOB 147
SMITH RALPH R 5/22/2009 8:53:22 AM 5/22/2009 12:25:07 PM DAVID WASHINGTON 4 OEOB 147
SMITH WILLIAM 7/13/2009 10:15:11 AM 7/13/2009 10:22:52 AM ANDREW 1 OEOB 18
SMITH WILLIAM H 5/15/2009 12:05:17 PM 5/15/2009 3:00:18 PM DAVIS 5 OEOB 25
SMITH WILLIAM B MAX DOEBLER 115 OEOB NORTHHALL MILITARY HONOR GUARDS FOR ARRIVAL CEREMONY
SMITH WILLIAM B 5/20/2009 12:30:00 PM MAX DOEBLER 153 WH SOUTHLAWN
SMITH WILLIAM B MAX DOEBLER 149 WH SOUTHLAWN
SMITH WILLIAM VISITORS OFFICE 220 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOUR.
SMITH WILLIAM A ANNE BREWER 6 WH WW
SMITH WILLIAM A 3/26/2009 2:20:55 PM 3/26/2009 3:44:45 PM JEFFREY CROWLEY 15 OEOB 180
SMITH WILLIAM 3/20/2009 10:23:18 AM 3/20/2009 11:27:23 AM KATHLEEN HAMM 8 NEOB 5104
SMITH WILLIAM A 4/7/2009 12:23:45 PM JOSEPH KENNEDY 131 OEOB 450 THIS IS AN EVENT AROUND THE NEW HIV/AIDS PROGRAM.
SMITH WILLIAM A JENNY YEAGER 17 OEOB 248
SMITH WILLIAM A 4/30/2009 2:23:45 PM 4/30/2009 4:02:02 PM TINA TCHEN 10 OEOB 430B/C
SMITH WILLIAM JACK SMALLIGAN 7 NEOB 5104
SMITH WILLIAM 6/17/2009 10:59:59 AM 6/17/2009 11:27:32 AM JACK SMALLIGAN 2 NEOB 8116
SMITH WILLIAM TRICIA SCHMITT 7 NEOB 7002
SMITH WILLIAM K VISITORS OFFICE 236 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM J 5/20/2009 9:00:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 206 WH RESIDENCE 9AM MEMBER TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM W VISITORS OFFICE 233 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM W VISITORS OFFICE 239 WH RESIDENCE
SMITH WILLIAM 7/17/2009 12:00:00 PM VISITORS OFFICE 135 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM N 7/22/2009 7:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 201 WH RESIDENCE 7:30AM GROUP TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM 4/15/2009 4:12:07 PM 4/15/2009 4:52:34 PM JOEL PARRIOTT 1 NEOB 8225
SMITH WILLIAM L 7/21/2009 10:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 243 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOUR
SMITH WILLIAM 7/25/2009 7:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 216 WH RES TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM Y 7/22/2009 11:22:26 AM MICHAEL STRAUTMANIS 4 OEOB 110
SMITH WILLIAM C VISITORS OFFICE 146 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
SMITH WILLIAM H VANESSA WOODBERRY 77 OEOB 474
SOROS GEORGE 2/25/2009 2:01:41 PM DAVID LIPTON 4 OEOB 248
SOROS GEORGE 3/25/2009 10:27:31 AM 3/25/2009 2:04:23 PM DAVID LIPTON 3 OEOB 374
SOROS GEORGE LARRY SUMMERS 3 WH WW
SOROS GEORGE 3/24/2009 4:17:04 PM TINA TCHEN 142 OEOB 450
STERN ANDREW L 4/13/2009 4:05:49 PM 4/13/2009 5:16:45 PM JENNIFER CANNISTRA 3 OEOB 196
STERN ANDREW MAX DOEBLER 299 OEOB 350 THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LUNCH IN THE EEOB.
STERN ANDREW L 2/18/2009 2:22:14 PM 2/18/2009 4:27:01 PM RAHM EMANUEL 2 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 2/9/2009 1:58:31 PM 2/9/2009 4:02:24 PM RON KLAIN 3 OEOB 276
STERN ANDREW L 3/10/2009 11:15:57 AM 3/10/2009 12:55:15 PM RON KLAIN 8 OEOB 276
STERN ANDREW L 6/13/2009 9:30:00 AM VISITORS OFFICE 543 WH RESIDENCE GROUP TOURS
STERN ANDREW L 4/13/2009 1:53:09 PM 4/13/2009 2:45:04 PM PETER ORSZAG 4 OEOB 252
STERN ANDREW L 2/18/2009 7:34:15 PM POTUS 10 WH BLUEROOM
STERN ANDREW L 2/23/2009 12:30:00 PM POTUS 59 WH EASTROOM MEETING
STERN ANDREW L POTUS 14 WH EASTROOM THIS IS FOR THE HEALTH CARE SUMMIT
STERN ANDREW L POTUS 22 WH ROOSEVELT HEALTH CARE MEETING
STERN ANDREW L 5/26/2009 10:00:00 AM POTUS 136 WH EASTROOM EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
STERN ANDREW L 7/13/2009 1:08:50 PM 7/13/2009 2:39:57 PM POTUS 14 WH WW LABOR LEADERS MEETING
STERN ANDREW L 2/13/2009 1:56:08 PM 2/13/2009 7:30:35 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 7 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 3/24/2009 5:28:32 PM 3/24/2009 9:28:36 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 3 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 4/15/2009 6:29:32 PM 4/15/2009 7:33:58 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 5 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 5/12/2009 5:23:56 PM 5/12/2009 6:20:13 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 5 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 6/1/2009 1:56:44 PM 6/1/2009 3:15:11 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 4 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 7/7/2009 5:30:53 PM 7/7/2009 6:35:57 PM KRISTIN SHEEHY 5 WH WW
STERN ANDREW L 2/4/2009 3:15:41 PM TINA TCHEN 215 WH EW BILL SIGNING.
STERN ANDREW L 4/15/2009 8:58:09 AM VPOTUS 43 OEOB 350 VPOTUS EVENT
NOT CLEAR IF OBAMA HONDURAN POLICY WAS PURE IGNORANCE OR BECAUSE HE'S A LEFTY.
History will tell.
I agree with everything in John's post. Long-time readers of this blog know that I've been outraged by the U.S.' policy on Honduras ever since June. I have nothing more to say, except to observe that if you are going to say Obama's a left, you might as well throw in the rest of the world. Any country that had an opinion on it, sided with Zelaya. Or claimed to. I read articles on otherwise well-informed websites, insisting it was a "coup" months after the fact. The real lesson to be learned here is that Constitutions don't matter. Having Obama back up the rest of the world on this ridiculous stance to Honduras felt like an "Et tu, Brute?".... And I went over to that Hillary Clinton lovefest AKA No Quarter and pointed out that if Clinton was really worth her salt she would have stood up and opposed Obama's policy on this, resigning if necessary over it. The fact that she quietly toed the line makes her just as bad as Obama. And for once nobody had a damned thing to say in response to that. Nothing to say..... I was dead right. Mary Anastasia O'Grady was the lone voce of reason throughout all this.
We can rule out ignorance as a possible reason for Obama's policy, because if he was that dumb he wouldn't even be able to find his way into work in the morning.
Hoping that JB follows this up with an update from Nicaragua. Apparently Ortgega is using the Zelaya template and has forced the Supreme Court there to rubber stamp his perpetual reelection.
In this case however the State Dept . is "concerned " .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204692.html
Haha! U.S. keeps forgetting who the bad guy is ... they all look alike to us. This reminds me of the joke that Mexicans tell, where two men are standing in a crowded square and talking, first guy says, Hey, that's my cunado over there at the other end of the square. Second guy says, "Which one?" First guy says, "The one with the beer belly." Second guy says, "Which one?" First guy says, "The one with the big tapatio..." Second guy says, "Which one? Still don't see him?" First guy takes a pistol out of his holster, shoots his cunado, says "That one!!"
>Haha! U.S. keeps forgetting who the bad guy is ...
It also keeps forgetting what POTUS may have done or said yesterday. Such an attitude keeps the field wide open for any touchdown drive by the opposing team.
In the film, 'The Official Story' ('86), set in Argentina, the little girl keeps singing:
"In the land of 'I don't remember'
I take three steps, and I am lost."
He's not that dumb. He's that inexperienced.
And, Lou, I agree wholeheartedly w/you about Hillary. It was shameful.
C'mon, you and I have never been POTUS and even WE could have done a better job on the Honduras situation. In fact, I could have done a better job on every single aspect of the Presidency so far than Obama has, with the exception that he did a decent job of rescuing that tanker Captain from the Ethiopian pirates! But apARRRRRRt from that, I could have done everything better. Except, of course, all the human interaction and gladhanding, at which I suck mightily.
VALERIE JARRETT SAID SOMETHING INCREDIBLY REVEALING AND STUPID.
In response to a question about the war w/FNC, she said that we are still going to speak truth
to power. What a siege mentality. Her motto, apparently, is "Think Small".
Have you ever seen Doug Hoffman, the Independent candidate in New York's 23rd, speak. He looks like a total doofus; a deer-in-the-headlights type. Looking at him you'd say, "This guy could never get elected dogcatcher even." (I understand that Lincoln didn't cut such a drop-dead figure in his day either.)
I think the paradigm has changed in this country. We no longer look to the slick-Willie types to lead us. We've come to distrust people who 'gladhand' and talk too much. We now look to people who have actually accomplished something other than simply getting themselves elected. Why don't you step up to the plate, Lou?
By the way, did you see, Obama is playing with us again; pushing our buttons. The partial list of visitors to the WH that was released contained the names, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Michael Moore and Angela Davis. All of the above, the WH claims, are not the people we would normally expect. The whole thing was reported on state-sanctioned website MSNBC by (honestly) Bill Dedman. It is Halloween, after all. Happy Halloween!!!
Alas, unlike Clinton, who never inhaled ..... und so weiter.
(Apologies if this is a double-post: The internet—this corner of it, anyhow—doesn’t seem to like me today.)
Nobody these days cares much about a politician's long-ago inhalation of dead plant matter.
Consider that Bush II and Obama have tacitly admitted drug use in their younger days, although all right-thinking Americans must of course lament how that pair's history of substance abuse prevented them from truly scaling the heights of their chosen profession, politics.
Happily, both of these good and great men have atoned for their past misdeeds by striving to maintain, at considerable taxpayer expense, the vast Federal apparat that saves young cannabis smokers from the hell that is marijuana addiction--that is, excess pizza consumption and late-night cartoon viewing--by locking them in steel cages alongside serial rapists and mass murderers.
Why, I myself know a successful local impresario who claims that during one memorable night back in the Eighties, after putting on a performance at the Governor's mansion of a failed Southern state, he and a rising young politician who hosted the event both did excellent anteater imitations while seated side-by-side. We can only sigh with relief to learn that said public servant suffered no lasting damage for this and other pharmacological indiscretions, save perhaps for a tendency toward lingering sinus trouble, and went on to bigger and better things.
The inspirational outcome? As I write these words, a former President of the Greatest Nation on Earth is modestly unveiling a golden statue cast in his Imperial likeness in a thuggish Islamic political entity that he and his lovely wife played no small part in creating, right in the heart of Europe.
So don't let some piffle such as that deter you from running for office, Mr. Filliger. No, the real consideration is that you couldn't possibly get elected because you are too smart: Or to put it another way, everyone in the idiocracy that is America can now vote. Unfortunately, the law of supply and demand still holds, with the result that the franchise is about as desirable as a First Class ticket for the Titanic's maiden voyage.
I kind of threw that comment up there as a smoke screen, if you'll pardon the pun. Let's just say that I wouldn't vet well.
Not only that, I dislike government so much that if I were elected my first act would be to shoot myself to be sure that I would govern best by governing the least. There's a kind of a Laffer curve for conservative pols- you get to a point where you loathe government so much that you just couldn't stand yourself if you ever got into politics. I'm way past the inflection point on that particular curve.
But I'm flattered by the compliment anyway.
As Willie Stark says about his political opponents in "All the King's Men," "There's always something."
OK if I go back to excoriating liberals now?
"If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will shoot myself." Got it.
You forgot one thing. If appointed King, I will rule wisely.
YOUR FACE *HERE*
Augustus no less, I'm honored.
I 've always kind of admired Julian the Apostate, but I'll take Augustus and run with it.
>I 've always kind of admired Julian the Apostate
Perhpas that would have been the more apt choice. Gore Vidal--who, as you probably know, wrote a marvelous novel about Julian--referred to him as the underground hero of all those who for the last sixteen hundred years quietly regretted the Christianization of Europe.
I have occasionally wondered what it must have been like for the Pagans of that age, especially the learned and thoughtful ones, to see their temples fall into ruin or worse. Then I look around me, and I realize that maybe I do know how it feels to live at the end of an age after all.
What faith comes next for the West? Not atheism: the great majority of human beings appear to be biologically hardwired to embrace some sort of religion, just as they are predisposed to right-handedness (says this southpaw). Nor Paganism: Been there, done that. Probably Islam for nuclear-armed Europe by century's end, if not sooner, given current demographic trends. As for America, with our do-it-yourself ethos we will probably embrace some homegrown bit of crackpottery. Perhaps the final war will be fought between the Jihadis and the Scientologists.
Yes, the party line has always been that the Dark Ages were punctuated only here and there by the flickering candle of nascent Christianity, but it seems much more logical that the spread of Christianity triggered the Dark Ages.