President Obama has just created a panel to figure out how to get our debt under control.  Even when he makes a decision, such as this one, it is to pass the buck to someone else to do the heavy lifting.  His attempt to overhaul health care turned into the Harry and Nancy Show.  Obama campaigned and gave speeches while Pelosi and Reid shut out the Republicans and created the bill that could not be passed.  Obama is now trying to put lipstick on that pig, by calling for a bipartisan meeting.  But instead of starting over and getting ideas from everyone, they are basically going to pick over the stinking corpse of the bill that the Democrats could not get passed.  It is obvious that the real objective is to either get some Republicans to sign on or to use the meeting as a club to beat the Republicans as the “party of No.”

Stop Me Before I Spend

This president can’t seem to control himself and he finds that he painted himself into a corner.  If he tries to raise taxes on those who make less than $250,000 per year he will be breaking a major campaign promise.  If he stops spending on his own, he will lose the left which is about the only support he has remaining.  So he calls in Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to co-chair a committee charged with making the president a tailor made fig leaf, to allow him to cut spending and raise taxes, while shrugging his shoulders and saying, “I can’t go a gainst the excellent advice of this august commission.”

If he wants to cut spending, he can just cut spending.  He doesn’t need a commission to do so.  How about an across the board spending freeze, except for national defense, until the the economy grows enough to balance the budget and not with gimmicks like increasing discretionary spending now 24% and then saying you will freeze that same spending for the next threee years?  How about freezing government hiring?  How about returning $500 billion in unspent stimulus money and $400 billion in repaid TARP money, plus interest, to the Treasury?  Don’t hold your breath.  That would require someone with executive experience who knows how to make a decision, rather than deliberating, like a legislator.  Sarah Palin comes to mind, as does George Bush (I & II), Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan.  These experienced executives knew how to put together a budget and make decisions.  Chris Christie in New Jersey was just sworn in last month as governor and he immediately identified the problem as too much spending and got to work cutting it back.  All that President Obama seems to know how to do is talk. 

If we start advertising now, we may get enough resumes to review to find a replacement by 2012.

Reading one of the liberal pundit’s pan of Sarah Palin’s new book and how the reviewer harps on her inexperience, anyone with a room temperature IQ cannot help but ask, what about the guy who won?  You can say she had little executive experience, only two years as governor of Alaska and two terms as mayor of 7,000 resident Wasilla.  But while one may argue she had little executive experience, he had none.  For that matter, neither did McCain or Biden.  Legislative experience?  Sure.  Executive experience? No, and it shows.

Decisions, Decisions

What has he actually made a decision on?  The economy?  The porkulus package that is “saving” so many jobs, was put together by Pelosi.  It was as if she brought it to him and said, “Here, sign,” and he did.  Health care?  He talked a great deal about it, but five or more proposals sprouted from different committees and like a demolition derby, banged around until there was one left, dented, but still moving.

Guantanamo?  Iraq? Afghanistan?  A decision, no, no, no, we need to ponder and confer more. Despite putting the commander, McChrystal, in place, Obama can’t seem to agree or disagree with his recommendation.  And now, the granddaddy of them all, trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York.

Who’s the Boss?

This is what Barack Obama said:

“‘This is a prosecutorial decision as well as a national security decision.”

Er, no.  This is a decision for the Commander in Chief.  Don’t slough it of on some underling, no matter how lofty his title, so that at some future date you can put the blame on him.  As Harry Truman (D) said, “The buck stops here.”  It’s time, Mr. President, to step in, assert your constitutional authority and put a stop to this.  The military tribunals were set up and authorized by Congress for just this purpose.  It’s time to do the right thing.  You took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to bow to your left wing base. 

 After 9/11, President Bush kept us safe  for seven and half years.  Less than a year into your presidency, we have had the worst terrorist attack on our soil since then.  This was preventable.  But we are already starting down the slippery slope of liberal happy talk and putting all Americans in harm’s way.  Consider this, if the jihadists had their way and actually defeated us and took over, the first place they would go to slaughter the devils would be Hollywood.  If you don’t want to protect America because it’s what you took an oath to do, then do it to save your Hollywood friends from themselves.

Conservatives, do not lose heart.  Tea Party people, stand firm.  Like many great turning points in history, they often involve an historic battle that is lost.  The Alamo. Remember the Maine. Dunkirk.  Pearl Harbor.  9/11.  What they do instead is rally the troops, get them fired up and motivated.

The Battle

In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, the aloofness of the professional pols came to a head.  It was the epitome of a recent Rasmussen poll that said 74% of Republicans said their elected leaders were out of touch with the base.  On the Democratic side, the opposite was the case were most Democrats felt their elected leaders held similar views to their own.  So what happened in the special election in New York’s 23rd district?

Republican party bosses chose Dede Scozzafava to defend a seat that has been Republican since the Civil War.   Ms. Scozzafava is pro-abortion, pro-”reform in workers ability to organize”, pro-gay marriage,  pro-Obama stimulus package, and endorsed by the Working Families Party, an ACORN front group.  That was more than conservatives could stand.  Doug Hoffman threw his hat in the ring, conservatives from around the country rallied to him, and Scozzafava eventually dropped out of the race and threw her support behind…the Democrat!!

So the race was between a Democrat and a Conservative, with the Republican candidate a footnote.  The Democrat prevailed by about 5% and picked up a seat for Nancy Pelosi.

The Talking Heads

The liberals started rubbing their hands and crowing over the Republican party self-destructing.  I see it differently.

In a Gallup poll, 40% of Americans considered themselves conservative, 20% described themselves as liberals.  That leaves 40% in the middle.  The prevailing wisdom among the Republican Party leadership is that we need to run “moderates” and have a big tent to win elections.  I say, do the math. 

If you need 50% to win the election, and many times you don’t, then run a conservative candidate.  You will start off with the 40% that call themselves conservative, and then you only need to win 25% of the middle to put you over the top.  (40% in the middle x 25% = 10%; 40% conservative base plus this 10% = 50%). 

Liberals have the tougher job.  Starting out with only a base of 20% self-described liberals, they need to win 3/4 of the middle to get to 50% and win.  It’s even tougher for them because they typically have to go hard left to win the primary and then try to swim upstream to get back in the middle without anyone noticing.

Putting Elections on a Platter

So what has been the strategy of the Republican Party leadership?  Run moderates, because “we can’t win elections with the conservative base alone.”  That’s true but neither can the Democrats win with just their liberal base and as I just proved, theirs is the tougher job.  But when you run moderates, here’s what happens.  A good portion of the conservative base stays home, disgusted.  So from starting with 40%, you maybe now have a 20% base.  You just let the Democrats pull even.  Now you have to win not 25% of the middle but half of the middle.  Let’s say the middle is a continuum from almost conservative to almost liberal.  If Republicans keep their base, then they can just go after the middle group that is “almost” conservative.  If they alienate their base then they have to get every vote in the middle that is the least bit conservative and maybe some liberals.  On the flip side, if they keep their base by running conservative candidates, that forces the Democrat to get all the liberals, all moderates, and some who lean conservative, to capture 3/4 of the middle.  After going hard left to get nominated, that is an almost impossible task.

Don’t Let Obama Fool You

Obama’s election had an historical element to it that we are not likely to see again.  He is an incredibly good speaker, that is, until you realize that is all he is.  Put up a moderate like McCain, and it was no contest.  The only time it became interesting was when McCain picked Palin, which got the base energized.  But the McCain campaign completely mismanaged bringing Palin on board, and the moment was lost.

Remember the 23rd!

So, conservatives have to rally and the Republican leadership has to pay attention.  As Margaret Thatcher used to say, “Don’t go wobbly.”  Start putting conservatives on the field and turn the tide of the battle. 

The next battle is Florida where Charlie Crist…better update his resume, there is a new kid in town, named Marco Rubio and he’s a conservative.

Just what is a czar anyway?  And I am not talking about the Russian royal family.  A czar is essentially a presidential advisor.  Take a moment to think about that.  Why does President Obama need to appoint 32, give or take, czars in his administration?  Could it be that he really, really needs a lot of advising?

In the campaign, the main stream media, somehow diverted the attention away from Obama’s glaring lack of experience as the Presidential candidate and put all their focus on Sarah Palin’s “lack of experience.”  Sarah Palin had more executive experience as a sitting governor and I emphasize executive experience, than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.

But the media tut-tutted, and said “it’s only Alaska,” as for her mayoral experience, “it was a very small town.”  When Obama slipped his teleprompter and tried to claim he was running a very large organization, his campaign, it was laughable.  But don’t worry, he had Joe Biden to lean on.  I feel better.

Presidents and The Experience They Brought With Them

Let’s take a look back at past elected presidents and the executive experience they brought to office:

• George W. Bush — Governor of  Texas
• Bill Clinton — Governor of Arkansas
• George H. W. Bush — Vice President of the United States, Head of the CIA
• Ronald Reagan — Governor of California
• Jimmy Carter — Governor of Georgia
• Richard Nixon — Vice President of the United States
• Lyndon Johnson — Vice President of the United States
• John F. Kennedy — None.  He was a legislator and his inexperience nearly got us annihilated with the Cuban Missle Crisis, following the Bay of Pigs, and an embarrassing showdown with Khrushchev
• Dwight D. Eisenhower — Five star general in command of all Allied Forces in Europe in World War II
• Harry Truman — Vice President of the United States
• Franklin D. Roosevelt — Governor of New York , Secretary of the Navy
• Herbert Hoover — Secretary of Commerce
• Calvin Coolidge — Vice President of the United States, Governor of Massachusetts
• Warren G. Harding — Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
• Woodrow Wilson — Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University
• William Howard Taft –  Secretary of War
• Theodore Roosevelt — Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Legislators Versus Executives

So, from the beginning of the 20th Century until the election of Barack Obama, only once has a  president with only legislative experience been elected, John F. Kennedy.  Nikita Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy’s inexperience in their first summit in Vienna, and then there was the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the attempted overthrow of Castro.  On top of those two building blocks we got the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought us closer than we have ever been to thermonuclear obliteration.

The Eternal Campaign

President Obama is no different.  He has the least experience of any president since 1900.  He effectively was only a United States Senator for two years, as he was busy campaigning for the next two years and resigned his last two years after being elected president.  So what does he do?  He does what he is comfortable doing and what he is good at, campaigning.  He has held more press conferences in six months than his predecessor did in eight years.  Who is running the show while Obama is running around?  Is it Nancy Pelosi?  Rahm Emmanual?  His programs are falling apart.  The stimulus isn’t working and more Americans say that it has hurt the economy rather than helped it (31%-25%) and that the rest of it should be canceled.  His cap and trade plan is opposed by most Americans (56%) who don’t want to pay more in taxes to fight global warming.  His government takeover of our health care is opposed by most Americans (53%-44%) and yet he presses on, figuring that with enough campaigning the American people will be won over.

This may be a long slog, waiting for 2012 and hoping our country does not get destroyed by all the power grabbing characters in Congress, who don’t care a whit about us, only about increasing the powerful control they have over our lives.  We have tothe fight of our lives on our hands preventing the taking of our liberties.

If anyone thinks that Sarah Palin is beaten and is about to become a footnote in history, I would say to them, “don’t bet the rent on it.”  In her address where she announced she was stepping down, she used a basketball analogy.  After all, it was on the basketball court where she got the name “Sarah Barracuda.”  She said what a good point guard does when facing a full court press is protect the ball, keep her head up with her eyes on the basket and she passes off at the right opportunity.  What she didn’t say was what happens next.  If anyone who watched Michael Jordan play knows, after passing off they don’t go sit on the bench.  They maneuver into position to make the big play and if you take your eye off of them, they’ll kill you every time.

The Full Court Press

In the last year Sarah Palin has been hit with eighteen ethics complaints.  Her record so far in these complaints is 15-0, with three still pending.  The results of these complaints have been a lot of needless time and money spent by state employees investigating these complaints and clearing her name every time.  The concern she expressed yesterday is that these are a distraction, a waste of state time and money robbing the people of Alaska of the limited government they deserve and it is also costing her family a fortune to defend.  As you can see below, one of the ethics complaints is that she is raising money to pay her legal fees.  So the full court press is throw every frivolous ethics complaint you can at her, complain if she tries to raise money to defend herself, bankrupt her if you can, and later you can complain that she spent too much time on these issues rather than on state business.  Here is a summary of the complaints:

1. Troopergate — this one is the well known case where a state employee was fired for not doing his job.  It also involved her sister’s ex-husband.  The firing was deemed lawful.
2. Palin was accused of helping someone get a job in state government.  I’m shocked, shocked that someone in politics actually helped someone get a job.  Complaint dismissed by state personnel board.
3. Palin was accused of taking a public position on a mining ballot initiative days before the vote.  Wow, she actually took a position.  How refreshing for a politician.  Any issue about it taking place within days of a vote is our misguided “campaign finance reforms” that curtail our First Amendment rights in the name of better government.  Complaint rejected by the Alaska Public Public Offices Commission.
4. Palin filed “self disclosure”  to get the Troopergate issue resolved once and for all.
5. Complaint filed by employee union over the firing of Mike Wooton, the trooper in Troopergate.  Complaint dismissed.
6. Monagan, the individual fired in the Troopergate ethics complaint against Palin asked for a hearing to clear his name.  The panel said there was no legal basis or jurisdiction for such a hearing.
7. Complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission about the $150,000 the Republican Party spent for her wardrobe.  FEC said the expenditure was not banned.
8. Palin charged with abuse of power for charging the state when her children traveled with her.  The personnnel board found no wrongdoing.  Palin agreed to pay $10,000 to the state to cover the costs.
9. Palin was accused of conducting an interview in the Governor’s office about the Vice Presidential campaign.  Complaint dismissed by the state personnel board.  I guess she should have conducted the interview outside.  Let’s see, November in Alaska outside, perfect!
10. Palin accused of violating ethics law for campaigning for Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss.  Dismissed by state personnel board.
11. Complaint that Palin misused funds of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to promote her political ambitions by using advertisements featuring her.  Her crime was that she allowed the board to use her image and did so before she was picked by John McCain.  Complaint dismissed after a personnel board investigation.
12. Complaint alleging interference in job hiring by an individual whose identity could never be verified.  The name used was that of a character in a British soap opera.  Palin’s attorney said that no one in  the state of Alaska could be found with that name and the filer refused to use a real name so the case was dropped.
13. This and 14 allege that two employees on Palin’s staff worked on state time to help Palin before and after her Vice Presidential campaign.  This complaint is still pending.
14. Same as 13 covering the other employee. Pending.
15. Complaint Palin improperly used state property, time and equipment for partisan political purposes, including posting on the Governor’s web site that she was running for Vice President.  Dismissed as lacking merit by the state personnel board.
16. Palin accused of a conflict of interest because she wore clothing with an “Arctic Cat” logo on it because Arctic Cat sponsored her husband’s team.  Dismissed.
17. Complaint alleged that Palin’s work with a PAC violated ethics laws by misusing her position and accepting outside employment. Dismissed as lacking merit by the state personnel board.
18. Complaint alleging Palin is misusing the governor’s office for personal gain by accepting money from the Alaska Fund Trust.  The fund was established by supporters to help Palin defray her $500,000 in legal bills run up by fighting all these ethics claims she keeps winning.  Brilliant strategy.  Hit her with baseless ethics claims and then fight her ability to pay her bills.  This is still pending.

Add to this the personal attacks by the likes of David Letterman, the recent Vanity Fair article and her enemies standing at the ready to file ethics complaints every time she tries to defend herself, let’s her opponents set the agenda.  If allowed unchecked for the next three years, no one could recover from that.  On top of that is her personal focus to do what is best for her state.  She does not want to waste state money and time on dealing with ethics complaints rather than governing, but these complaints have to be dealt with and they seem to be coming at a rate of about one every three weeks.  She defeats everyone of them but it is a drain.

An Unconventional Move

The pundits are saying this is the end of her career.  But let’s look at this.

• By stepping down, the ethics complaints will stop.
• The people of Alaska can have a government that is not wasting time on these issues.
• Her legal bills will stop climbing
• She can probably make $50,000 to $100,000 per speech on the speaking circuit and quickly pay off her legal bills
• She can hit the campaign trail for Congressional and Senate candidates in 2010.  She is still very popular and a very successful fund raiser.  This will pile up political IOUs for 2012
• She can speak out forcefully against the reckless policies of the Obama administration, raising her profile without complaint (ethics and otherwise) that she is neglecting her state duties.
• She can work on burnishing her foreign policy credentials.  Remember she was only on the campaign trail for about 60+ days, trying to get in sync with John McCain’s positions while being mishandled by his staff.  Now she can stake out her own positions, carefully and thoughtfully

Is this a risky move?  Sure.  But to continue the basketball analogy, how conventional was Michael Jordan’s style of play?  He did things that no one ever saw coming.

The 2012 Campaign

Some pundits are saying that Mitt Romney probably can’t stop pinching himself with his new found good fortune.  Is that premature?  After all, he and Sarah Palin are basically in the same position.  They are both former governors.  Yes, it can be said that Romney finished his term in office while Palin is stepping down.  However, Romney as governor of liberal Massachusetts has some things on his resume that he would probably like to live down.  Palin accomplished a lot in a short time in office without the same albatrosses.  She is doing what she thinks is right for herself and for Alaska, not following some tired political playbook.  Her approval/disapproval rating among Republicans is 73/17 compared to Romney’s 57/18.

Brand New Ballgame

Not being in office allows her to set the agenda rather than having to react to other people’s agendas.  She doesn’t have to hold back.  Consider how Dick Cheney came out forcefully so speak against Obama’s policies when others in the Republican party were trying to find their voice.  His poll numbers rose dramatically.

Sarah Palin can speak with conservative principles that win elections.  When Republicans stick to their conservative roots they win.  When they try to be moderate they lose.  It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, but I can see Palin having just passed off the ball driving to the basket while her opponents watch the ball, and soar into the air for the ally oop and the score.

Don't Anyone Dare Say Government Caused This Mess

You can never solve a problem if you do not face up to the full scope of the problem.  In listening to President Obama, and reading liberal columnists like Maureen Dowd, in the description of what caused the current economic calamity, the government is always given a pass.

We are in an economic morass because of the eight years of failed Bush policies, greed on Wall Street, tax breaks for the rich, etc.  Government’s culpability which, I believe, is really the gravamen of our economic problems is never mentioned at all.  Democrats and Liberals don’t dare point to Democrats and liberal policies as having anything to do with the collapsing economy.  That is why they always say that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, as they also said when Clinton ran for President.  They don’t dare say it is the worst economy since Jimmy Carter, since that would remind the American people that the Democrats screwed up that one as well.

Unmentionable Causes of the Current Economic Mess

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of control.  Explosive increases in debt taken on under the leadership of Franklin Raines (Democrat), and Jaime Gorelick (Democrat), remember she also gave us the firewall between the CIA and FBI that hamstrung the investigation of al Queda.  Raines made over $90 million while at Fannie Mae and at the same time was accused of overstating earnings by $10.6 billion.  So, where’s the demand for a clawback of Raines’s salary?
• Barney Frank (Democrat) and Chris Dodd (Democrat) — Frank blocked every attempt to put in place greater regulation over Fannie Mae.  The Bush Administration tried to increase regulation over Fannie Mae, but Frank blocked it.  What you hear today is that the reason for the economic problems are a lack of regulation.  Chris Dodd got VIP mortgage treatment from Countrywide mortgage before they went belly-up.  Asked to come clean on the mortgages, Dodd first said sure, we’ll get around to it.  Then he made some papers available for viewing, but not copying, and has since clammed up.
• Community Reinvestment Act — Carter (Democrat) administration program to push home ownership for low income people, by forcing banks to report how much they were offering loans in low income neighborhoods and face the consequences if it wasn’t enough.
• Janet Reno (Democrat) — in the Clinton Administration Reno threatened action against financial institutions if they weren’t lending enough low income individuals.  What bank doesn’t want to be publicly branded a racist institution?

So we have homeowners, who should have never qualified for a mortgage, about to receive bailouts from all the responsible people who took mortgages they could afford, when they could afford them.  Do you ever hear about any of this cast of characters mentioned by President Obama or the main stream media? No.  It wasn’t the government actively pushing social policy on those people least able to handle it.  It was greedy banks and unscrupulous lenders, trying to avoid being branded racists, who took advantage of these poor ignorant people.  Perhaps if the government hadn’t destroyed our education system, these people might have read what they were about to sign.

How Do you Solve Only Half a Problem?

As these characters are never mentioned as having a role in the problem, how can you ever hope to fix the problem if these bad actors are still going about their business doing what caused the crisis and blaming everyone else.  President Obama demonstrates his inexperience more profoundly every day, seemingly making things up as he goes along.  That is not leadership and what we need now in times of crisis is leadership.  Obama has never shown the courage or willingness to take on his own party.  Without rooting out these characters and really fixing the whole problem, it will only happen again down the road.

What we need now is a leader.  Someone who actually has experience running the executive branch of a state.  Someone who is not afraid to take on the entrenched power of their own party and has succeeded in doing so.  Is there anyone out there who fits that bill?  Gee, that sounds like Sarah Palin.

The balloons and bunting have been picked up, the Washington Mall has been swept, the ball gowns put away.  The campaign, the election, the historic celebration are now in the history books.  It’s time to govern.  Sadly, with only three weeks in office, President Obama’s lack of experience is on full display.

Due to the looming financial crisis, the transition in power was unprecedented in the level of cooperation between the departing Bush administration and the incoming Obama team.  Obama said he needed the second half of the $700 billion, Bush put in the request.  Everyone knew what problem number one was.  The economy was in crisis.

When Dealing With a Crisis, You Lead, You Don’t Delegate

When United Airways Flight 1549, which would end up in the Hudson River, was climbing after takeoff, the co-pilot was at the controls.  When the plane struck a flight of birds and lost power, Captain Sullenberger cooly said two words, “My aircraft.”  The co-pilot responded, “Your aircraft,” the captain took the controls and the first officer then set about trying to re-start the engines.

In the midst of this economic crisis, that President Obama keeps saying we have to fix now, he let Nancy Pelosi run the show, while he took a victory lap, visiting the White House press pool, writing exectutive orders closing Guantanamo, and speaking to el Arabiya.  Nancy Pelosi was furiously stuffing the stimulus turkey with pork, and President Obama was inviting Republicans in for tea, thinking that by doing so, a new era of bipartisanship would emerge.

In several corporate jobs that I have had there were times of crisis.  If we had to drastically cut expenses to deal with the crisis, it was all hands on deck.  It wasn’t see what you can do and get back to me.  It was, “Be on the conference call at 3PM prepared to tell the Chief, how you are meeting your expense reduction targets.”  All senior managers were on the call and all got a turn to tell the Chief what they were contributing or, gulp, where they were falling short. If you were falling short, make no mistake, you better have a damn good reason and whether or not you did, your future career was now under a microscope.  The point is, like Captain Sullenberger, in times of crisis, the leader is unmistakenly in charge.

President Obama let Nancy Pelosi craft this disaster, without strong guidelines of what he would or would not accept, and did not demand that Republicans be involved from the start.  You reap what you sew.  Now he is scrambling to drag this stinking corpse across the finish line and it’s not pretty.

Why did this happen?  Because President Obama was a Community Organizer.  He never ran a business. He never held an executive position in government.  His gossamery resume was obvious, but ignored.  Sarah Palin must be shaking her head in disbelief.

Running Back to Safety Zone of Campaigning

Barack Obama was a master on the campaign trail, first dispatching Hillary Clinton, and then deftly outmaneuvering John McCain.  So what does the inexperienced man do when he’s under stress?  Go back to what he’s good at.  This week we saw President Obama back on the campaign trail, with the same rhetoric.  The problem is, you can take a fair degree of license with what you say on the campaign trail.  When you govern, you have to deal with reality.  George Bush is gone.  Bashing Bush may have gotten Obama elected, but he’s got to put that one out to pasture.  His claim that tax cuts caused this financial problem, and that the past eight years have been an economic disaster, just don’t hold up.  It makes him look clueless.  Sure it fires up the base, but so what.  We need solutions, not pep rallies.  Tax cuts boosted the economy for Kennedy, for Reagan, for Bush.  In short, they work.  Obama may not like them, but they work.  To say otherwise is like hanging a sign over his head, saying Under Construction.

Cabinet Picks

And the late night talk show hosts were wondering what they were going to do without Bush in office.  The hits just keep coming.  Once again, you have to ask, who’s in charge?  How did all of these slip through the cracks?  Richardson, Geithner, Daschle, Soldis, Nancy Killefer, Eric Holder.  Sure it’s noble that Obama took responsibility for Daschle.  But if you stay with him too long you look, uh, inexperienced?  With all of these problems, someone’s head should roll.  The President is delegating what he shouldn’t and what he should delegate is a mess.

International

President Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of harmony in our relations with other countries.  But what has happened?

• Ahmadinijad — Candidate Obama said he would talk with Iran without preconditions.  Ahmadinijad said he wanted an apology before he would meet with Obama
• Several countries harshly criticize the stimulus package and its “Buy American” provision, raising the spector of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that deepened the Great Depression
• Iran shoots a missle into space to celebrate the Iranian revolution, with the subtext, “That was when we boldly took over your Embassy and held it for 444 days during the weak presidency of Jimmy Carter.”
• Pakastan releases A.Q. Khan the nuclear proliferator in a snub to the U.S.
• Kyrgyzstan tells U.S. to close military base that is key supply route to Afghanistan

I hope President Obama is a quick study, or we’re in for a long grim four years.

You have to wonder.  Now that the election is over you would think that the focus would be on the president-elect and his transition.  That is newsworthy and is being covered, but the continuing focus on Sarah Palin is surprising.

Finishing Her Off?

Could it be that the left is so fearful of Sarah Palin and her ability to energize crowds that they feel they must finish her off, so she does not come back stronger and more popular?  Could it be that they can’t imagine facing her with four more years of experience under her belt?

Do the Attacks Pass the Smell Test?

A Fox news story said that the McCain campaign became increasingly disenchanted with Palin toward the end of the campaign.  It said that her lack of knowledge of the most basic facts about civics and geography were alarming.  This raises some interesting points:

1. In vetting Sarah Palin, no matter how quickly or superficially it was done, how could they possibly miss issues so allegedly glaring?
2. The opposition, which included the main stream media, descended on Alaska from north to south to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin.  Bill O’Reilly reported that the National Enquirer went up there checkbook in hand, to get any good story they could.  What did they come up with? Nothing. The only thing that came close to a story was Troopergate.  Try as they might to make it a big story and even an October surprise, it flopped.  She was later completely exonerated by the proper investigative authority in Alaska (not the Democrats in the legislature).  Interestingly, the vindication didn’t make much of a news splash even though the findings were released before the election.
3. Her approval ratings as governor were the highest in the nation.  Could a complete dunderhead be so widely approved of?

Just How Thin Was Her Experience?

Ironically, in an article that was used to sandbag Sarah Palin in a CNN interview, Byron York wrote in National Review (“Sarah Palin, Governor”):

… a look at Palin’s 20 months in power, along with interviews with people who worked with her, shows her to be a serious executive, a governor who picked important things to do and got them done — and who didn’t just stumble into an 80 percent job-approval rating.

She took on her own party when she saw ethics problems.  How many Democrats can say that?  The typical Democratic response to scandal is circle the wagons, stonewall, and counter attack.  Just think Bill Clinton, Gerry Studds, Tim Mahoney, the Keating Five, et al.

She renegotiated a pipeline project with major oil companies that was originally negotiated by her predecessor on terms unfavorable to Alaska.  She overhauled the state ethics laws, working with both Democrats and Republicans in the Alaska legislature.  She also vetoed spending on things that she determined were not a state priority, for such things as “dealing with killer shrubs and Zamboni blades.”

Byron York distilled how she approached governing with three points:

1. She hires well.  “There was a pretty good team of people assembled right away to come in and start with her big-picture principles and develop a process and legislation to carry that out,” says Joe Balash, the governor’s oil and gas advisor, “I would say that her management style is to give her staff, her cabinet, a pretty long leash, but with very high expectations — and she’s not afraid to tell you that you didn’t get it right.”
2. She is involved in details in big things but not on everything.  In other words, she doesn’t get lost in the weeds.  She keeps focus on the the important things.
3. She is dead set on fulfilling campaign promises.  Imagine that! A politician who actually cares about what they say on the campaign trail and says what they mean and means what they say.

Sarah Barracuda

Sarah has shed the muzzle of the second fiddle in a presidential race.  She no longer has to pull her punches so as not to conflict with the top of the ticket.  She is back to being governor and the chief executive of Alaska.  So she can now set the record straight and she should do so enthusiastically.  She should take advantage of media outlets that are fair and balanced, rather than lying in wait for her.  She should come out swinging and really let the left know that if they were frightened of her before, they have awakened a sleeping giant.

I watched every debate and I have been following this campaign closely still no one can point to his accomplishments. When interviewing a job candidate, you look at their resume, to see if what they have accomplished in the past would give an indication of what they will do in the future. Any job candidate can talk a good game about what they are going to do, but what experience of accomplishments can you draw on to validate their claims. But you can’t give me one accomplishment, other than to shoo me away to go read his website. Why does it take $600 million to make the case for Obama if it is such a slam dunk?
More on Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

One of the first tests of a presidential candidate’s judgement concerns who he or she picks for their running mate.  It’s hard to imagine how this presidential candidate could have possibly made a bigger mistake, and I am not talking about John McCain.

Much has been made about Sarah Palin’s qualifications, with Colin Powell being the latest to weigh in saying, “I don’t believe she’s ready to be President of the United States.”  But what about Joe Biden?  I am guessing that by now the Obama campaign has scheduled Joe Biden’s appearances over the next two weeks in Outer Mongolia.  For the Republicans, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.  His latest prognostication gave us the following:

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

So let me get this straight, if we elect Obama, his Vice President guarantees we will have an international crisis on our hands and it won’t be apparent that they will do the right thing.  Would that be like when Russia invaded Georgia and Barack Obama’s first comment was for both sides to exercise restraint.  When he came to the realization that one country invaded the other, he offered up that the U.N. Security Council should debate this issue and offer a resolution.  When he came to the realization that Russia has a veto over any U.N. Security Council resolution, he then lined up with John McCain’s position, that Russia should get out.

To summarize what Joe Biden said:

• Obama is inexperienced
• Our adversaries will see this inexperience as an opportunity for advantage and will purposely test the United States under a President Obama
• It will be like when John Kennedy was President (where we came the closest in our history to nuclear war)
• Whatever Obama does will probably be wrong
• We need to stand behind Barack Obama until he finally figures it out and gets it right

This is the experienced half of the Obama-Biden ticket, telling us about an impending crisis and we’re supposed to pull the lever for Obama and what? duck for cover?

I don’t want leave you on such a depressing note so let me share some of the lighter Biden gaffes:

• “Stand up, Chuck, let ‘em see ya” to wheelchair bound Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham.
• “Hillary is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America.  Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me”
• “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.  He said, “Look, here’s what happened.”  When the stock market crashed, Herbert Hoover was president, not FDR, and television had not yet been invented.
• “Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S.” Uh, that’s four letters, Joe.

If Barack Obama wins, I can only quote Bette Davis, “Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”