Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak stood next to Greta Van Susteren on her program last night with several small stacks of paper.  Each one of those stacks represented an existing federal law that banned using public money for abortion.  He said anyone of them, pick one, is acceptable to him to get him to vote for the Senate version of the health care bill.  He said President Obama signed a law, just ten weeks ago that had similar language.  He was baffled as to why he could not get an answer from the President or his committee chairman, Henry Waxman, why they would not just continue existing federal law.  Let me put forth my hypothesis.

The Real Healthcare Objective

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the statists have as their goal one, national health care provider, and that is the federal government.  I know that the “public option” has been in and out of the bill, and that the stated plan is for private insurers to continue to provide heath care insurance, but here is what I see as the real game plan:

1. Do whatever it takes to cajole health insurance companies to sign on or at least shut up.
2. Make sure that individuals do not take control over their health care purchasing decisions through high deductable plans and Health Savings Accounts.  Keep the 3rd party payer as the primary choice, which will allow health care costs to continue to rise.
3. Put in a federal oversight panel to make sure health insurance providers do not make “excessive” profits.  In other words, price controls.
4. With steps 2 and 3 in place health insurance providers will eventually leave the business or go bankrupt.  The federal government will have no choice but to step in so that all Americans continue to be covered.
5. Eventually, the federal government is the last man standing and the de facto public option, or should I say, public mandate is in place. Voila.

The Stupak Problem

If the scenario unfolds as I have described, then the only way to pay for an abortion is through your federal health care insurance provider.  If the language Mr. Stupak wants is in the bill, abortions will be near impossible and Roe v. Wade will be dead.  Do you think President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, NOW, or other pro-abotion groups are going to stand for that?  Not a chance.

So the Democrats have to find a way to either hoodwink Stupak into voting for the bill without the language he wants or find a way to peel off the 29 or so other Democrats who agree with Stupak.  Watch closely what happens.

Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, “Harry, I have a gift.”

In the article he also describes this observation:

Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me.”

That’s essentially how he got elected.  With a heaping helping hand from the popular media, many people saw Obama as a blank screen upon which they could project their own views and see those as Obama’s own.  He’s our man!  He listens.  He cares deeply.  For a politician it is a phenomenal gift.  For a legislator it is an extremely valuable gift.  For an executive it is poison.

Pulling the Trigger

As a politician or a legislator you are in the role of persuader; somebody else makes the decision to vote for you or vote with you, respectively.  As an executive you are in the role of the decider.  You must make a decision and every decision, especially the tough ones are going to make a good many people unhappy.  Perhaps that explains why, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted “Present” so many times.  Voting “Present” rather than “Yea” or “Nay” allowed him to hold that special place where everyone felt he agreed with them.  Too many decisions one way or another would have tarnished “the gift”.  So why is “the gift” poison for an executive?  If you don’t have “the gift” and you make a decision your opponents may disagree with you, but they are not surprised.  If you have “the gift” and you make a decision, those on the short side feel betrayed and angry, because they thought you agreed with them and then “sold out” and decided the other way.

Obama is in a tight spot where he has to make decisions and decisions have consequences.  When you make a decision it is very hard to make it seem like everyone got their way.  His complete lack of executive experience is telling.  If he had some executive experience, such as a mayor or a governor, he might have had enough practice learning how to make his decisions appear to satisfy everyone, as his campaign speeches did.  But that’s the thing about decisions.  If everyone supports them, they’re not much of a decision, like deciding to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving.  Everyone enjoys the decision, but it’s really not what we elect presidents for.

I’ll Have the Waffles, Please

If you watch closely, you can see that Obama is struggling to preserve “the gift”.  He said he is for closing Guantanamo, but not yet.  He is for pulling out of Iraq, but no timetable.  The general he put in charge of Afghanistan, McChrystal, said he needed 40,000 more troops, but Obama could not bring himself to say yes or no.  He had to ponder, think, consult, weigh alternatives, and three months later, he gave McChrystal what he asked for.  Those on the left complained that he was not pulling out.  Those on the right complained that he wasted precious time while our troops were on the battlefield.  His backers tried to give him the fig leaf of showing gravitas.   He can’t seem to find the magic formula where everyone applauds him.  From “the gift” he has gone to “the anti-gift”.  Instead of satisfying everyone, he is finding that he is satisfying no one.

Move On

It’s time for Obama to “Move On”.  He should put “the gift” in his trophy case right next to his Nobel Peace Prize.  It got him to the White House.  How much more can he ask of such a thing?  So drop the pretense.  We all know he is a hard left guy, so he should just be who he is.  He may suddenly face a more hostile press, or they may love him more, although that would be hard to believe.  But when he makes a decision he will at least please his base, and then his opponents can fight his statist goals without being branded as racists.  As a hard left guy he will probably not get re-elected because America is not a hard left country, on the contrary the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative.  But by choosing he can try to do what he can within one term.  It will be a battle. Obama’s poll ratings have dropped steadily since his inauguration and the Democrats are likely to lose seats in Congress this fall.  As an old acquaintance once said to me, “It’s like standing in the middle of the road.  Choose left or choose right, but choose; otherwise you get hit by traffic coming in both directions.”

I am sure you all recall the video played ad nauseum starring the Reverend Wright railing against America defending itself.  It now seems to accurately describe the results of the new hope and change administration.  After his worldwide apology tour, and banning the term “War on Terror,” replacing it with the limp “Overseas Contingency Operation,” so that, like his presidential campaign, no one would know what he actually meant or stood for, his own chickens are coming home to roost.

Actions Have Consequences

The left used to attack the Bush administration’s approach because being tough on terrorists only served to aid them in their recruiting.  Maybe so, but I am less concerned about lines of recruits in Afghanistan than crazed terrorists in New York.  Obama’s apology tour shows his weakness and as the terrorist mindset abhors weakness, it encourages attacks.  So what would you prefer, attacks on American soil, or an uptick in recruiting on the other side of the world?

War vs. Law and Order

Bush recognized the War on Terror for what it was, a direct attack on the United States and our way of life.  In a war, you go after the enemy, you don’t wait for him to come to you.  You take prisoners and hold them, until the conflict is over.  You dismantle their ability to wage war.  It is aggressive and proactive.  It is the way America has prevailed in wartime.

The Obama approach is Law an Order.  Each act is seen as separate an isolated and as a crime to be investigated and prosecuted after the fact.  First responders are more important than the first wave of Marines.  To quote today’s Wall Street Journal:

Brian Jenkins, who studies terrorism for the Rand Corporation, says there were more terror incidents (12), including thwarted plots, on U.S. soil in 2009 than in any year since 2001. The jihadists don’t seem to like Americans any better because we’re closing down Guantanamo.

But the Obama Administration is currently considering releasing prisoners held in Guantanamo to Yemen.  How long do you think it will be before they are back on the front lines trying to kill us?

Add to the mix the Obama administration’s, or should I say Eric Holder’s, decision to try the 9/11 terrorists in a civilian court.  Holder’s testimony before Congress justifying his decision was painful to watch how he had no credible justification.  Don’t forget to give  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, his Miranda rights and get him a good lawyer. Let’s pretend his claims to be associated with al Queda is just tough talk and braggadocio.

The reality is that whenever America fought a war and politicians pulled punches (e.g., Viet Nam) we lost.

Things are Working Swell

Janet Napolitano, Obama’shead of Homeland Security had this to say, according to the New York Times

“The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days,” Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary said, in an interview on “This Week” on ABC. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, used nearly the same language on “Face the Nation” on CBS, saying that “in many ways, this system has worked.”

How chilling is that?  What exactly does she mean by the system worked?  She refers to the number of organizations that were alerted after the fact.  How about notifications before the fact?  How about listening to the terrorist’s own father who reported him to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria.  How about denying him a visa?  Or is Napolitano too busy adding funeral homes to her list of organizations to notify after the fact?

Where’s Obama?

If there’s a chance Chicago might get the Olympics, don’t worry, Obama’s on a plane to give it the old presidential push!  If there’s a Nobel Prize to pick up, Obama is your man!  If there is a terrorist attack on our country, hey, don’t bother me I’m on vacation in Hawaii.

Some pundits on the news pointed out that President Bush didn’t speak out against the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, for several days, so cut Obama some slack.  The problem is that no one doubted for a minute that Bush was engaged in the War on Terror, some even saying he was obsessed.  Well that obsession kept us safe for seven years.  In less than one year we have had Fort Hood and now this airline bombing.

Furthermore, why is Eric Holder making such a monumental decision regarding trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York?  Why isn’t this Obama’s decision?  Just like so much in this administration, Obama campaigns and gives speeches, and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Eric Holder make policy decisions on their own.

Here’s to the Heroes

The heroes in this case were a Dutch citizen and the flight attendants, who subdued the terrorist and extinguished the fire.  To quote again from the Wall Street Journal:

The lesson here is the same as Flight 93 on 9/11 and shoe-bomber Richard Reid, which is that civilians willing to act in their own self-defense are a crucial part of “homeland security.”

May I suggest that the statists drop their efforts to weaken the 2ndAmendment?  As part of  “homeland security” we may need to bear arms like at no time since the Civil War.

In Harry Reid’s Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes. “I don’t know if there is a Senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” Mr. Reid said at a press conference that offered an unintentional commentary on modern democracy. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.” – Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2009

It kinda makes you feel warm all over, that our Congressional leaders are representing their constituents, selflessly doing what’s best for America in line with the consent of the governed (55% opposed according to latest Rasmussen poll). 

 Have you seen some of the commercials for Ally bank, where a man asks one little girl if she wants a pony and she gleefully says yes, so he hands her a toy pony.  He then asks the next girl if she wants a pony and she says yes, so he calls out a live pony.  The first girl, crestfallen, says, “You didn’t say I could have real pony.” To which he replies, “Well, you didn’t ask.”  By now you probably know how Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Byah of Indiana feel.  They didn’t ask for a bribe in return for their vote on the health care bill, and like the creep in the commercial Harry Reid tells the world what a couple of saps they are for not doing so.

While Obama’s first stimulus plan lies sputtering on the ground, and he and his team tee up another one, they fail to realize that many small businesses that create most of the new jobs in this country, simply do not know what all this (health care, cap and trade, stimulus after stimulus) is going to cost them.  Until they do, this uncertainty is what is keeping many of them from doing any hiring.  How can you hire a new person when you no longer know how much your existing staff is going to cost when the music stops?  So the unemployment picture will drag on no matter how may stimulus plans Obama rams through.

Coming to Their Senses

This is not over yet. The House version and the Senate version still have to be reconciled in committee.   In the House Bart Stupak says he has 30 Democrats ready to vote against the bill, if his amendment against abortion is tampered with.  The chumps in the Senate that Harry just made fools of, may re-think their support. The far left demands a public option be put in.  Lieberman and a few others vow to vote against any public option. In addition, the members of Congress, when they return home to their districts, may not find them full of good cheer this Christmas, as incensed constituents express their opinions on why every Democrat in the Senate doesn’t understand 55% opposition, while they vote yea.  Better watch out for flying fruitcakes, they can be lethal.

I’ll bet you thought I would be writing about Roland Burris, the senator appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich under dubious circumstances.  No, Senator Mary Landreau of Louisana just sold her vote on the senate health care bill to Harry Reid for $100 million.

Here is what was reported by ABC News.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.  (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost?  According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

But don’t worry, the talking heads in the lame stream media will soon be circling the wagons saying that Senator Landreau didn’t personnally get any money, she got it for her state.  But where did the money come from?  Your pocket, my pocket, and your children’s and your grandchildren’s pocket.  In short, Harry Reid is using the coersive power of the IRS to take your property and give it to Louisiana so that a deeply flawed health care bill will get passed and Mary Landreau can get re-elected.  Seems fair to me.  Does it seem fair to you?  Isn’t that what makes you proud to be an American?  The arrogance of this Congress and administration are incomoprehensible.  They see Tea Parties across the country rising up to protest their out of control spending.  They get blasted when then go home for their summer recess.  Poll after poll says the country is opposed to the stimulus package, cap and trade, the health care bills, but they just keep rolling on.

Let me quote from the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by thier Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariabley the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is thier Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their Future Security.”

These are troubling times.  We cannot allow these abuses to continue without speaking out loudly and strongly.  Our government has gotten far too big and out of control.  It’s time to shrink it back to where the Founding Fathers envisioned it: limited and unobtrusive.

When in doubt stick with what you know.  Barack Obama knows how to campaign.  As a result he has been campaigning non-stop since he was elected.  Instead of spending his time in the Oval Office making executive decisions and leading, he is the perpetual pitch man for everyone else.  The problem is the American people didn’t elect Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as their president, nor did they elect a politburo of 30+ czars.  They elected the most inexperienced and inept chief executive since the Harding administration.

Biden’s Brushfires

Remember it was almost one year ago that Joe Biden said, “Mark my words…”  that within six months of taking office a President Obama would be faced with an international crisis.  Maybe it took a little longer than six months and maybe it is not yet a full blown crisis, but are there brushfires?  Let me count the ways:

• Ahmadinejad thumbs his nose at the world while buying time to finish building nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them to Israel.  Obama had the opportunity to put the same kind of pressure on the mullahs that the mullahs put on the Shah of Iran in 1979, by speaking out strongly against the fraudulent election in Iran. Instead he issued a tepid response and the mullahs cracked down hard.  Now Obama is negotiating from a position of extreme weakness.
• The Poles and the Czechs are thrown under the bus, while the Russian bear licks its lips as the missile defense bases are cancelled by Obama
• Obama has spoken to his commander in Afghanistan but once in the 70 days that the commander has been on the ground.  The general says he need more troops.  Obama is calculating his response.
• Hugo Chavez is getting chummy with Ahmadinejad and would love to have nukes in Venezuela so he can take over as leftest strongman in South America as Castro fades away.
• And if the nukes can’t get to Venezuela fast enough, Chavez wants to put puppets throughout the region.  He is currently trying to re-install Zalaya in Honduras, after Zalaya was removed for trying to illegally alter the Honduran constitution.  Hillary and Obama are not helping the democratic government of Honduras, but Chavez and Zalaya.
• North Korea continues to play cat and mouse with Obama, while they also expand their nuclear and missile capabilities and see who they can sell the technolgy to for hard currency.

Amid all of this, one might expect President Obama to be burning the midnight oil in the Oval Office.  Well, not when there is another campaign that needs his special talents.  So he will travel to Copenhagen, to campaign for his hometown of Chicago, as they bid to be the host of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

It alsmost makes you pine for Jimmy Carter.

Can anyone offer us a deal to give us cash if replace our Congressional Clunkers?  How about the health insurance companies?  They’d probably kick in, since they are Congress’ new whipping boy.  Oil companies, coal companies?  They get bashed everytime Congress screws up and bans nuclear power, offshore drilling, ANWR, and coal as the price of oil climbs.  Banks who didn’t take TARP money?  Well Congress wants to set their salaries now.

Congressional Mileage

How much liberty per dollar are we getting for the money guzzling Congressmen and Senators who pull down $169,300 per year (more for committee chairs, and Speaker Pelosi who weighs in at $217,400)?  And this doesn’t begin to count their expense budgets, gold plated health care, etc.  I’m sure we could get much better mileage from a smaller government and a Congress that only meets half a year.  I’m willing to bet that the longer Congress stays in session the more trouble they get us into, while consolidating their power and feathering their own nests.

Here’s the Plan

Let’s set up a fund.  We’ll let Goldman Sachs run it, as they seem to know how to turn a buck. Anyone can contribute to the fund, no limits. For every Congressman who voted for the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the Health Care disaster and is run out of office, the fund will pay out a percentage of the fund to everyone who registered and voted.  The percentage will be calculated as the percentage of these clunkers who are retired out of Congress.

Think about it.  If you are a voter who really, really believes that the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the government takeover of our health care system is a good thing, you will vote to re-elect the members of Congress who voted the same way.  However if you don’t, then perhaps you need a little personal stimulus to cross party lines, or set aside ideology, and vote the bums out.  It might even help improve voter turnout.  And why not?  If ACORN get get illegal aliens and dead people to vote for their candidates, we need a way to fight back.

What do you think?

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, entitled, “What You Might Not Know About the Recovery,” that might more appropriately be entitled, “What I Don’t Know About the Recovery,” Joe Biden educates us on the stimulus.  It’s typical after the fact political obfuscation to try to convince people that they are not really seeing what they see with their own two eyes.

He begins in typical fashion going back to when he and Barack Obama took office, but avoids mentioning President Bush by name:

We still have a long way to go, but clearly we are closer to recovery today than we were in January.

This is a true statement, but I would argue that this is in spite of the $787 billion of our money squandered on the stimulus plan, while Mr. Biden says it is because of it.  It is instructive to see how someone begins their defense of an issue and Mr. Biden begins by saying that not all of our $787 billion is being spend on pork barrel projects.

Notwithstanding this progress, the nature of the Recovery Act remains misunderstood by many, and misconstrued by others: critics have suggested that the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet programs. As the person leading the administration’s efforts to put the Recovery Act into effect, I want to set the record straight.

He takes up the position that the statists typically do, that we are too stupid to understand.  This is complex stuff, America, way over your head.  You need us in the political class to take care of this for you.  Notice he didn’t say there was no pork barrel spending.  He says that not the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet projects. (Don’t forget the $30 million for Nancy Pelosi’s salt marsh harvest mouse).  Feel better?

Tax Cuts?

He says the single largest part of the recovery act is tax cuts, more than one third.  Huh?  Does he mean the $8 per week in lower payroll taxes?  That’s going to stimulate the economy?  At the same time they are finding trillions, TRILLIONS, in new taxes and spending through Cap and Trade, Heath Care reform, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, that will dwarf the paltry $8 per week that people are probably saving, rather than spending, if they even notice it at all.

Transfer Payments

The second larget chunk, Mr. Biden tells us, is for transfer payments.  In other words, money from the federal government given to state and local governments. Where do all governments get their money from?  Us.  So taking our money in federal taxes and giving it to state and local governments helps us exactly how?  Don’t forget the portion of each dollar that gets lost along the way as each bureaucracy handles it.

What are these transfer payments going to be used for?  Uncle Joe tells us:

The money is allowing state governments to avoid laying off teachers (14,000 in New York City alone), firefighters and police officers and preventing states’ budget gaps from growing wider.

The dictionary defines recovery as returning to health, consciousness, etc.  This part of the stimulus does nothing to stimulate the economy.  It’s another one of the Obama administration’s wonderful fictions about saving jobs.  As the economy continues to shed jobs even above the level that the Obama administration told us it would go without the stimulus Biden boasts that they saved the jobs of government workers; union workers; Democratic voters.  Also it helps bloated state governments that have mismanaged their finances from having to make fiscally responsible decisions but keeping them fat, dumb, and happy.  By the way, which states seems to be in the most financial trouble?  California, New York, New Jersey, Michagan?  Aren’t those all “blue” states?  So is the Obama adminsitration helping America or helping themselves?

On Track?

Mr. Biden says that we are on track and that 25% of the funds have been committed.  What exactly does that mean, committed?  If you go to Recovery.gov, you will see that as of this week, only 8.5% of the money has actually been spent.  Give Mr. Biden a calculator, please.  With the three chunks that the Vice President says comprise the stimulus: tax cuts, transfer payments, and infrastructure projects, and that signs of recovery are due to the stimulus, how can the stimulus have that kind of affect when only 8.5% of the money has been spent?

The Resiliency of the American Economy

The American economy is the envy of the world.  It is resilient beyond description.  It is recovering on its own, despite government interference, and the government meddling that caused this recession.  The American people are no longer being fooled by the smooth talking Barack and Joe Show.  A Rasmussen poll shows that only 25% of the American people believe that the stimulus has helped the economy.  If that’s not bad enough 31% say that the stimulus has actually hurt the economy.  On top of that 45% say the rest of the stimulus should be cancelled.

The Stupid American People

With 92% of the stimulus yet to be spent 9% more Americans say cancel the rest than say to keep going.  So Mr. Biden grabs the op-ed page of the New York Times to, sigh, lecture the American people once again on how they misunderstand, and misconstrue what your benevolant, socialist leaning government is trying to do for you.  How ungrateful can you be?  If you people don’t get it, then the president and vice president will just have to take over the rest of the economy and set you all straight.  They will tell you how much you can earn, what cars to buy, what food to eat, what kind of light bulbs to put in your house, control how much energy you can use in your house through the smart grid, what medical treatment you can have, and when you have to die.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

The American people have been charmed by Barack Obama as he is a very charming man.  He is an historic president.  But they are starting to notice the tea parties, the abdication of the main stream media to do their job, the warnings about what is happening to their country and they are starting to pay attention.  The more they see and hear the more Obama’s approval ratings drop.  So he pushes harder and faster.  It will be a close race to see if President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can ram through their agenda and slam the door behind them, or if we can wrestle back control of our liberties and send these people packing.

It’s time to brush off the Constitution, read the 10th amendment, and start stripping the federal government back down to the size the founders envisioned.  That will give more power to the states and the people and make government more accountable.  Face it, when your Congressman represents several hundred thousand constituents and their voice is only one of 435 in the House of Representatives, is it any wonder that the founders gave them only the powers spelled out in the Constitution.  They believed that effective government has to be responsive to the people.  That is impossible in Washington.  It is too big.  It is run by too many unelected career bureaucrats.  It has too much power to tax us, regulate us, spend our tax dollars on things to which we are morally opposed, and interfere with our liberties.

This is a critical time in our history and time to roll back the unrelenting growth of government and shrink it down to size.

Dangerous Clowns

“The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry, including at companies that did not receive federal bailout money, according to people familiar with the matter.” — WSJ May 13, 2009

I’ve got a great idea!  Let’s have the President of the United States, who has absolutely no experience in running a business, set the compensation policy of all companies who take bailout money, federal funding of any kind, government contracts, or who are subject to federal regulation of any kind.

But President Obama is not without some experience in setting salaries.  In Congress, the members vote on their own compensation.  Isn’t that how it is where you work?  Let’s see.   The employees, Congress, tell their bosses, us, how much of a raise they are going to give themselves and there is nothing we can do about it without firing the employees, Congress.  In every company where I have worked or have run, the management determines the level of compensation.  The employee has the veto power of turning it down and taking their talent elsewhere, but the employee doesn’t say, “I’m giving myself and all my co-workers a 10% raise.  If you don’t like it go find new employees.”

Who Got Us Into This Mess?

Before touching a dime of compensation of any private company, start looking at all the people in government who contributed to this mess:  Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and yes, Senator Barack Obama.  They all need a haircut, no, a buzz cut. 

Once Congress puts on hair shirts, and a little self flagellation for good measure, and apologizes to the American people for what they did to us, then we can take them seriously about fixing the problems elsewhere.  But for now, they should clean up their own house.

As Barack Obama famously said to Harry Reid, “I have a gift, Harry.”  Yes he does.  Barack Obama is quite a talented speaker.  One of his many talents is his use of props.  Huh?  One such prop is a rhetorical device that I will call the “Straw Man.”

The Straw Man

Obama uses the straw man to create a ficticious opponent.  This opponent is obviously a bad guy.  He’s insensitive, greedy, self serving, and even racist where he needs to be.  The problem is that he doesn’t exist.  But once created, Obama deftly maneuvers the straw man into whatever camp his opponents occupy and by doing so, villify his real opponents by polluting them with the presence of the evil straw man.  Here’s an example.

When Obama was pushing for his stimulus package he said something like this, “I don’t agree with those who say we should do nothing,” and “I don’t agree with those who say only tax cuts will fix the economy,” and “Eight years of tax cuts and deregulation got us into this mess.”  Like unmasking a magician, let me share the trick, so you can see it next time.  Obama never says who the straw really is, because he doesn’t exist.  Who said we should do nothing with regard to the economy?  The Republicans who opposed him definitely had different views on what should be done, but I don’t know of anyone who said we should do nothing.  So Obama creates this ficticious straw man and you can almost hear the American people booing the straw man as he says it.  Okay, let’s check off the people don’t like the straw man.  By pointing out his opposition to the straw man and then by pointing out the Republicans are opposed to Obama’s plan, Obama hints that the straw man is really in the Republican camp.  Cue the crowd to start booing the Republicans. Pretty neat, eh?  He can’t make a frontal attack on the Republicans because he will have to fight them on the battlefield of ideas.  He creates an unpopular position that no one has and hangs it on his opponents.

Which regulation was lifted that resulted in the economic problems that we currently have?  Which tax cut resulted in the collapse in the housing market?  President Obama won’t name them because they don’t exist.  Were there government programs that caused this problem?  Sure, and I can name them.  Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Community Reinvestment Act, HUD, etc.  Were there people who fought against more regulation?  Yes, and they have names. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Senator Barack Obama.  But these operators and programs are all part of the government and if there is one thing we have learned about President Obama it is that government is not big enough and Americans still have too much liberty left in their own hands.  His master plan is to reverse both of these.

Get the Torches Out

So now that you know what to look for, when you see President Obama float another straw man, put the torches to it.  If we had a responsible press, they would ask him to reveal who, specifically, he is talking about when he creates these straw men.  If he doesn’t have an answer queued up on the Teleprompter, it could be fun to watch.