And the hits just keep coming.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela called President Obama “ignorant” on Sunday, saying he has a lot to learn about Latin America.
[...]
Mr. Chávez said: “If Obama respects us, we’ll respect him. If Obama tries to keep disrespecting Venezuela, we will confront the North American empire.”

Bwahaha. But I thought the whole world would love us and sing kumbaya once Obama was elected? I thought Obama was a "citizen of the world" who chided us all for not speaking French (even though he can't) and never met a dictator he couldn't sit down and negotiate with?

You mean to tell me that actually Obama doesn't even know that there are different formats for movies throughout the world (something I learned in French class in high school; maybe if he'd taken French, he would've learned it too) and that he can't magically make dictators love us just by kissing their butts?

And his mere fact of existence doesn't change the world into a Garden of Eden?

Say it isn't so.

(Link via David B.)

Posted by: Sarah at 04:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When I was in grad school, I volunteered as a scorekeeper for the school's wheelchair basketball team. One of the players was my classmate and friend, and he took me to a practice one day, got me a chair, and taught me the basics.

Wheelchair basketball is really hard.

You try dribbling a ball while pushing a wheelchair with both hands. And while other wheelchairs are crashing into you trying to steal the ball. And then shoot a basket from a seated position, with just your arm strength.

I thought about that when I heard Obama belittled the Special Olympics. Sporting events for people with disabilities is no joke. They are not "sports for people who are bad at sports." Guard Wife is right that disabled bowlers would score way higher than Obama did.

The best quote on this issue came from The Anchoress: "And now, I guess I understand what all the folks on the left used to feel when they claimed the president 'embarrassed' them."

Posted by: Sarah at 04:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I am alive, in case you were wondering. I just don't have anything good to say. Rachel Lucas, on the other hand, lays into Obama for suggesting that our wounded warriors be covered by private insurance instead of the VA. The "blow" line was a nice touch.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's another example of someone covering for Obama. She worked with him when he was president of the Harvard Law Review, but didn't say anything while he was running for president because she "thought maybe it wasn't fair." But now that he's elected and a disaster, she's on record saying that he's always been this way:

[W]hen he was at the HLR you did get a very distinct sense that he was the kind of guy who much more interested in being the president of the Review, than he was in doing anything as president of the Review.

A lot of the time he quote/unquote "worked from home", which was sort of a shorthand - and people would say it sort of wryly - shorthand for not really doing much. He just wasn't around. Most of the day to day work was carried out by the managing editor of the Review, my predecessor, a great guy called Tom Pirelli whose actually going to be one of the assistant attorney generals now.

He's the one who did most of the day to day work. Barack Obama was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally he would drop in he would talk to people, and then he'd leave again as though his very arrival had been a benediction in and of itself, but not very much got done.

We're boned. We are so boned.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A quote from the State Department:

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

That arrogant, cowboy, unilateralist administration! Don't they care about our allies? Don't they care about diplomacy?

Oh wait, it wasn't Bush?

Bah, forget it then.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The few people I know who voted for Obama usually specified that his having Warren Buffett backing him up was proof that he would do a great job with the economy. So I am wondering how those same people are reacting to Buffett's rejection of all this stuff Obama is proposing: card check, criticism of corportate jets, cap and trade, etc. I mean, he was so nice and gentle, but even so there are little hints throughout the three-hour interview that his man Obama is messing up:

BECKY: David Paterson, the governor of New York, wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and he said, "The mortgage plan that the president has proposed is the right one." Do you agree with that?

BUFFETT: Well, I don't even know all the details, but I would say that the administration ought to be willing to listen to very prompt suggestions on ways to make it a little bit better.

Bwahaha.

BECKY: I feel like I have heard that from the president, that we will stand behind the banking system and it will be here. What can he say more specifically than that?

BUFFETT: I'm not sure he said it quite that way...

This exchange was sure interesting:

BECKY: We have people asking questions about things that the administration has already put out. In fact, Bob wrote in from Baltimore, Bob Knott, who says, "On a scale from one to 10, how would you assess the value to the US economy of President Obama's recently enacted stimulus plan?"

BUFFETT: Oh, well, the stimulus plan's going to take a long time to kick in. I mean, there'll be certain things kick in fast. But the stimulus plan is part of the recovery, but it's not the most--it's important to put it in, but there's other things that need to be done now to restore confidence. You're not going to--you're just not going to see that much happen.

Fantastic. Good thing we rammed that monstrosity through.

Slate has some more shocking quotes from Buffett.

Anyway, I'm just curious. I read the whole thing, and it seems like Buffett truly likes and supports Obama -- but if he calls him "articulate" one more time, I'm gonna lose it -- so he hesitates to flat-out call him on the carpet and tell him that he's making some bad choices. But he hints at it plenty.

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David sent me a link called Rattling the Cage: Waiting for Bibi's New Deal:

In other countries, beginning with the US and Europe, a new economic era has begun. Laissez-faire, anti-tax, anti-government capitalism is understood to have failed (it sure as hell didn't prevent this disaster, did it?), and the response has been a turn to the Left. In other countries, it's understood that government has to step in with more liberal, social democratic, Keynesian, New Deal-style policies or the economy is going to sink through the floor.

Not here, though. Here people are scared of losing their jobs, afraid to spend a nickel, their hearts go out to the factory workers who've gotten laid off, they read about how charities that keep hundreds of thousands of poor people afloat are about to go bankrupt, and what is their idea of change, of an Israeli New Deal? Bibi Netanyahu. The world's last reigning (or soon-to-be-reigning) ideological Thatcherite.

The article is not meant to be flattering; the author apparently wants an Obama. But I must say that when I read that intro to the article, I felt jealous of Israel. They get Benjamin Netanyahu and they're complaining about it.

Dude, I will trade you leaders any day of the week.

Our ship has hit a hurricane, and this is our crew, folks. To the poor and the soon-to-be poor: Don't expect a whole lot from the incoming government. The New Deal under Prime Minister Netanyahu looks like it's going to be a copy of the Old Deal under Finance Minister Netanyahu: Every man for himself.

Yes yes yes! Oh wait, that's meant to be a bad thing?

The whole article is about how Netanyahu didn't "solve the ecominy" last time he was in office; it just righted itself eventually. That's meant to be an insult, that Netanyahu didn't do anything. But in my estimation, presidents or prime ministers ought to stay as far away from touching the economy as possible. The free market will eventually right itself, but not if you tinker with it too much.

Our new president is a tinkerer of epic proportions. I'll take their guy over ours whenever they want to trade.

Not to mention that he ain't so bad on the eyes...

Rawr.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I do like Netanyahu. I'm glad he's in Israel right now, although I wouldn't expect our relations with Israel to get stronger - Netanyahu was oil and water with Pres. Clinton, I don't think he'll be best friends with Pres. Obama. But truly, I think that Israel needs to separate themselves from us for a bit. If they hadn't been so close to us the last couple years they might have taken out Iran's nuke reactors already. In any case, Netanyahu is a very interesting story - you can't really judge him unless you do so in the context of his brother. And then there was that whole nanny debacle... Fascinating to read up on, though.

Posted by: airforcewife at March 05, 2009 03:44 AM (Fb2PC)

2 He looks like James Bond! I'm in total agreement with you, on every point. We should propose a trade at the next big national tea party movement! Free trade is good for the economy, right?

Posted by: Deltasierra at March 05, 2009 08:25 AM (fPHZv)

3 Thatcher? Under her Britanistan came so close to becoming like the fascist nightmare of V for Vendetta! Even we wouldn't want that to happen to the occupiers of Filastiiiin! Why are conservatives so obsessed with Thatcher and Reagan? They're so old, man, so 80s. Marx, Engels, Stalin, Mao, Che ... they are the wave of the future! "Every man for himself"? How about every man and womyn for us, the Great Leaders? Under our unerring leadership, we will revive the dying world economy through sheer superhuman desire. What we want will be ... or else! Why do you blindly believe that "he free market will eventually right itself"? It's like waiting for a wrecked car to spontaneously fix itself. Intervention is needed on a glObal scale in the Newest Deal. We are smart. We, not a billion (gag) in-DUH-vidual capitalists and consumers, know what is best for the world. Believe us. You have to. After all, we are all soci@lists now.

Posted by: kevin at March 05, 2009 10:27 AM (+nV09)

4 I would so go for that trade...at least in ideologies re: economics. Please.

Posted by: Leofwende at March 05, 2009 11:40 AM (jAos7)

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I never really bought into the idea that it was better to have Obama as president and be in the vocal opposition than to have RINO McCain in office. I have been scared of irreversible policy changes. And this partnering with the global community, crippling us while helping them, is one of them:

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will discuss global financial supervision and coordinated measures to support the economy with US President Barack Obama this week.

Brown will become the first European leader to meet the US president on Tuesday, since Obama’s inauguration. “I believe there is no challenge so great or so difficult that it cannot be overcome by US, Britain and the world working together,” Brown wrote in the Sunday Times.

“That is why President Obama and I will discuss this week a global new deal, whose impact can stretch from the villages of Africa to reforming the financial institutions of London and New York, and giving security to the hard-working families in every country.”

Brown said the two countries’ “partnership of purpose” should be directed at fighting the economic downturn as well as terrorism, poverty and disease. Britain is keen to get US support for the bold aims of a G20 summit on April 2.

Every word in this short article makes me shudder.

-- I don't want my country to promise to give security to families in every country.

-- I don't want even more American tax dollars to fight poverty and disease in other countries.

-- I don't want an American New Deal, much less a Global New Deal. Ugh, I can't stand the word global.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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