There’s a disturbing video clip making its way around the Internet. It features President Barack Hussein Obama dashing up to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, shaking his hand exuberantly and then bowing to Putin. We can quibble about whether it’s an actual bow or not, but it’s very close. Given Obama’s past supplicating behavior – his literal and figurative bowing to people who don’t care for America – this could well be a bow.

Certainly, the president’s antics in Russia constitute a bow to the country. Obama wasted no time in deeding away the American National Security farm when he got there. And things might get worse if he decides to toss our nuclear missile defense system plans into the bargain.

We heard that a guarded Prime Minister Putin spent the first 50 minutes or so of their meeting lecturing Pupil Obama on Cold War history.  The truth is that it’s in part because of our missile defense shield plans that Putin can't stand America.  He and President George W. Bush got along initially, but things soured when Bush wouldn’t budge on plans to erect a nuke shield in Poland. Putin isn’t happy that we still have those plans on the table.

Now Obama seems ready to scrap those defense plans, even though he hasn't out and out stated so.  Given his pacifist idealism, we must suspect that Obama has every intention of giving away the missile defense farm.  Long before he became president, Obama was showcasing pacifism. Andy McCarthy points out a 1983 Columbia campus newspaper article the New York Times recently unearthed. In “Breaking the War Mentality,” Obama quoted Rastafarian Peter Tosh song lyrics (“Obama: Student Radical,” National Review, July 6, 2009, http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDEyMGNkZTI4MWE1ZjU4MzBiZjcwZjJhNzMyYzljYTA). In the article, Obama reflects, “When Peter Tosh sings that ‘everybody’s asking for peace, but nobody’s asking for justice,’ one is forced to wonder whether disarmament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance of focusing on the symptoms of a problem, and not the disease itself” (“Obama’s 1983 College Magazine Article,” New York Times, http://documents.nytimes.com/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-article#p=1). What idealistic profundity! Catch us as we swoon! Who didn’t anticipate a future national leader after reading that stunning missive?

Obama has already gift-wrapped a third of our nukes to Russia.  In turn, Russia is letting us cut across their backyard on land and on air as we fight the Afghan war.  They’ve also thrown a few antiquated rotting missiles into the mix. Who’d want them? Who has state-of-the-art technology? Who comes out a winner here? A genuine no brain barter just took place, and Russia came out the winner.

Even more disturbing: Ralph Peters contends that “the Russians don’t care much about our warhead numbers . . . What they really wanted – and got – was a US cave-in regarding limits on our nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles that could leave us with as few as 500 such systems, if the Russians continue to have their way as the final details are negotiated” (“Desperate Deal,” New York Post, July 7, 2009).

Since “President Obama even expressed an interest in further nuclear-weapons cuts” (Ralph Peters, “Desperate Deal”), OK believes the next step for our pacifist prez may well be to scrap our U.S. nuclear missile defense system.

Iran is moving ever closer to having nuclear capabilities. The U.S. needs the nuke defense shield to keep Amoudinajad in check. Can we trust Russia to police Iran for us? Obama think so. He wants Russia to strong-arm Iran into cutting its nuclear program.

An attempt to forge a stronger U.S.-Russian alliance makes sense – but we should be prepared to flex our own muscle instead of relying on a former prime adversary to solve an impending crisis.

By the way, cutting through Russia saves the U.S. a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what the porkulus bill cost us.  So money isn't an issue.  It's having an idealistic president in charge of America; a president whose actions repeatedly signal diffidence for the welfare of the American people and re-election and legacy building as his ultimate goals.

Conservatives leaders like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush never deeded the National Security Farm, nor did they waver in their resolve to protect America.  Obama is already doing the former and hasn't begun to do the latter.

Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

Hold no illusions. When liberals aren’t playing their favorite game – Playing the Victim – they’re playing their second favorite, Mea Culpa.  That’s because they’re guilty of Mea Culpaism:  shouldering the blame for the bad behavior and crimes of others.

Look at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Mexico.  She played Mea Culpa better than most, by claiming that Mexico is becoming a narcotrafico ruled country because of the United States’ “insatiable” appetite for drugs.

President Barrack Hussein Obama played Mea Culpa and disgraced our country with his disparaging comments during this month’s G-20 summit. Maybe he missed US History in college – America’s aid in fighting The Balkan Wars, The Invasion of Kuwait, and keeping the world’s sea-lanes open. Maybe Obama failed to study Ronald Reagan’s bold invasion of Granada. Of course, we’ll never know because Obama refuses to release his school records.

Obama stated, “In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.” As syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer points out, “It’s hard to appreciate an entity’s leading role in the world when its been sucking on your tit for 60 years as Europe has with regard to the United States, parasitically.” Krauthammer also asserts that Obama is “president of all of the United States, including Americans who have opposed him and he owns American History” (“Krauthammer Skewers Obama,” FOX News Video, April 4, 2009). Obama’s critical remarks went beyond mild self-deprecation. He claimed that “America was arrogant, dismissive and derisive regarding Europe.” An American president denigrating his great country on foreign soil is inexcusable.

There are more disturbing elements to Obama’s playing Mea Culpa abroad.  His behavior led to unprecedented levels of reckless generosity.  As Dick Morris points out, “On April 2, 2009, the Declaration of Independence was effectively repealed, at least as far as the American economy is concerned.  It’s not the British that are going to rule us, but it’s the British and the French and the Germans and the Italians and the entire European Union.  What Obama gave away at this G-20 summit is just absolutely horrific.”  How?  Why?  Because Obama agreed to expand the powers of the FSF – The Financial Stability Forum – and let it become the dictatorial Financial Stability Board, which will set financial standards that will regulate all countries in its group. That includes America.  Thanks to Obama, others will have greater say in telling our country how to conduct its business affairs (Dick Morris, “G-20 Ends US Economic Sovereignty,” April 3, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFDBkf4F_hs).

Even more disturbing from an American security standpoint: Obama’s talking down of the country is basically slathering a GIGANTIC RED BULLSEYE over the country he’s been voted to protect.  He’s boasting about his forthcoming trips to China and Russia; he’s talking about moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. In other words, he’s talking like a dreamer right out of the sappiest Disney film.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a sappy sentimentalist character in a Disney film, but Obama is a human being and – more important – he was elected to run our country and uphold the U.S. Constitution. He speaks of a utopia, all the while depicting America as a dystopia. We find Obama’s rhetoric and air of shouldering guilt “arrogant,” and his attitude “dismissive” and “derisive” when it comes to upholding his oath and the office he was elected to serve.

If Obama really wants to play Mea Culpa, how about shouldering the blame for all the reckless spending in the last 70 days; spending that has destroyed our economy and put us trillions of dollars in debt? Why doesn’t he stop blaming George W. Bush and the Bush administration for every problem our country faces?

The time for game playing is over. So is the time for creating fear and bypassing laws to pass pork-laden bills and budgets. That’s “arrogant” and “derisive” behavior. This is the real world full of real problems and real people who hate the United States. Stop denigrating our people and our country’s history, and recognize that it’s your job to keep us safe, Mr. President. There are escalating trouble spots around the globe and you should be dealing with those instead of slamming your country.

This administration’s passion for playing Mea Culpa is hurting us as much as anything else these days. It’s the propensity of the liberal to affix blame on anyone but the guilty.  Such behavior is denigrating to the United States and those citizens who believe in it and its founding principles of liberty and capitalism. Let’s not repeat the late 1970s – and long gas lines – when foreign oil powers played “tough with us” because they “didn’t fear Jimmy Carter. They didn’t respect him” (Rush Limbaugh, See, I Told You So, 112). As Rush points out, “Peace through good intentions doesn’t work.” Obama needs to move away from the liberal mindset of attaining peace without strength. He needs to stop with the symbolic gestures and attend to the problems our country faces. He needs to start addressing our safety. It’s what you were elected to do, Mr. President. “Controlling and preserving tranquility in our society is the number one responsibility of government” (See, I Told You So, 132). Stop trying to be the nation’s conscience and start acting like a leader and protect our country and its national interests. 

And one other thing: North Korea launched its rocket, violating sanctions and proving it's moving closer to being able to hit the Western US with nuclear strikes. Is Obama going to play Mea Culpa and find a way to blame the US for North Korea’s behavior? Will he at least shelve Mea Culpa long enough for a round of Paper Tiger? Will he deliver a stern warning to North Korea?

Why bother. Everyone knows you have to be at least perceived of as dangerous and powerful before being labeled timid and weak. The longer Obama is running the show, the more he seems determined to make the latter perceptions a reality.

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

President Barack Obama sports a Janus face – er, faces – for America. In Greek mythology, Janus had the ability to gaze simultaneously into the past and the future. The symbolism is relevant: We should study the past and avoid remaking mistakes as we move forward.

Obama is pretending to glance back as he moves us toward a positive future. But the more one studies the president, the more it seems as if his forward face is completely shrouded and the only one exposed is the one glancing backward. Worse, he’s fixating on our weakest past moments rather than taking the positives and applying them to our tomorrow. This is sure to lead America into deeper trouble on all levels.

If Obama were really concerned with the future of our country, he would not have saddled us with more debt than at any other time in our nation’s history. If he were concerned about our future, he wouldn’t have committed what Senator John McCain calls “generational theft” and mortgaged our children’s future. In less than 50 days an Obama economy has resulted in a tumbling stock market and people losing major chunks of their investments, 401(k)’s and retirement plans. The value of homes has plunged. There are record job losses and yet Obama plans to limit tax deductions for small businesses and higher income taxpayers. Last week we learned that some companies – icons of our economy – lost so much of their stock value that shares could be purchased for less than what it costs for a tank of gas. Take a breath, there’s more – healthcare stocks have dived due to the threat of a healthcare overhaul. Gore’s “bogus warming scheme” has cost oil and carbon-based industries.

If Obama were really concerned with moving our country into the future, he would have already completed filling all the posts in his administration. That hasn’t happened yet. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the latest figure to withdraw (bringing the total to seven)from an offered position. (Gupta was being considered for Attorney General.)

Tim “Turbotax” Geithner is also having his share of headaches. In spite of the U.S. living through the greatesty financial crisis since the Great Depression, Geithner is playing $uperman and trying to do everything by himself. As a result, at least one Congressional hearing went without a tax officer to answer participants’ questions on March 5. And Geithner’s pick for deputy secretary, Anette Nazareth, withdrew her name from consideration (3/5/09).

If Obama were looking out for America’s future, he wouldn’t be acting as if he was still on the hopey-changey campaign trail and fixating on figures like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Bottom line: Obama needs to put its own house in order and stop looking back. We thought that was the game plan of this new administration that promised hope and change. Yet there are now two investigations underway that are probing the way the CIA interrogated criminals during the Bush administration. Why? In part, for the same reason that Obama & Co. is so obsessed with El Rushbo: they want to distract us from the national economic mess that is only getting worse.

But another reason for the CIA skewering centers on more lying from Obama. Even though he claimed his administration was going to forego any Bush administration witch-hunts, it is hell-bent on conducting them.

More evidence that Obama’s employees are looking back more than forward lies in the fact that W’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is under attack. The House Judiciary Committee is looking into Rove’s role in dismissing federal prosecutors and what hand – if any – he played in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. This investigation is clearly fueled by hate. According to FOX News, Representative John Conyers (R – Mich.), who heads the Judiciary Committee, was overheard boasting, “We’re closing in on Rove . . .Someone’s got to kick his a**” (“Rove warns of ‘Show Trial,’” March 5, 2009, www.foxnews.com).

Obama complains that he inherited a mess left behind by George W. Bush. That’s getting to be an aging tune. The president should remember that the economy was actually quite strong during most of the W presidency – and that it really started to get shaky when Democrats took over Congress. Obama also inherited a strong military. Now he’s doing all he can to buckle its might.

Even Obama’s new policies ring old; his lofty rhetoric doesn’t match his actions. His scam to introduce big government into the private sector is a con job that equates to socialism. He’s trying to imitate FDR with his National Recovery Act, but it’s a sure bet this program won’t create enough jobs to get us out of our financial fix. And Obama’s plan to move national healthcare forward is also backward thinking. Other administrations have tried to pass it and failed; and it too moves us closer to a socialist nation. Why this fixation with socialism? It’s the antithesis of our capitalist country and it has failed everywhere it’s been tried.

Greek mythology cast Janus as the god of gates and doorways. Obama needs to pay more attention to the door facing future. Of course it’s important to remember past mistakes to avoid making them again, but too much backward gazing will not help our country get out of its financial quagmire.

With one exception: Obama would do well to implement past policies that have made our nation’s economy thrive. He should cut government spending, cut labor and capital taxes and lessen government economic regulation. In other words, he should stop trying to cast himself as Lincoln and FDR and embrace Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economics.

Any more looking back and Obama may lead tomorrow’s America into another Great Depression (if we’re not already there).

Ch-CHING!  That's the Sound of Obama’s $timulus Bill Sinking Us!

The mainstream media may still be riding high on hopeium, but polls show that Barack Obama’s popularity is dropping. Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard reports that the latest Gallop poll shows that Obama has a lower approval rating than George W. Bush did after his first month in office (http://newsbusters.org/, 2/24/09). Rush Limbaugh is right when he notes that “Obama promises bigger government and less freedom” (The Rush Limbaugh show, 2/25/09). Limbaugh isn’t the only one worried. Many citizens are questioning Obama’s ability to keep us safe, his political smoke and mirrors game of big government spending and “Nationalization.” Now that people have had a chance to study it, more pork is being discovered in the $timulus bill. (Did we really need to allocate money to study pig odor and tattoo removal?)

If you hear a growing rumble, it’s the sound of citizenry growing more agitated by Obama’s empty promises, his recent power grabs (U.S. Census, the stimulus bill’s scrapping of states’ rights, the founding of the White House Office of Urban Affairs), and his socialistic goals for the country. Obama can make all the speeches he wants. He can host all the fiscal conferences (complete with breakout groups) in the White House he wants. Conservatives understand that everything the president has done so far is posturing designed to conceal an agenda obsessed with spending; an agenda that takes from the haves and puts it in the hands of those who feel entitled. We repeat: everything on the table is designed to hurt those who have been careful about their spending and assist the reckless in the crowd. Everything that Obama has presented so far ensures that our country will continue to accrue the largest debt in any country’s history.

Ronald Reagan complained that the trouble with government is that there’s too much of it. If we stick to Obama’s plan for fixing the country, the U.S. government will bloat to an unprecedented size. Karl Rove shares some alarming projections. For fiscal year 2009-2010, “Barack Obama will add $3.7 trillion to the deficit. And it multiplies year after year . . . .At the end of his first term in office, Barack Obama is anticipating that the government will be 29% larger than it is today.” And if Obama were to be re-elected, “government will be 58% larger than it is today” (Hannity, FOX News, Feb. 26, 2009).

Two Americas

As Michelle Malkin points out in her article, “Rebel Yell: Taxpayer Revolt Against Gimmie-Mania,” our country is divided. Malkin notes that “Disgraced Democratic Sen. John Edwards was right about one thing: There are two Americas.” Edwards defines one America as “full of moochers, big and small . . . trampling over themselves with their hands out demanding endless bailouts.” The other America is “full of disgusted hardworking citizens getting sick of being played for chumps and punished for practicing personal responsibility” (http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=43865, 2/20/09). We wonder which America Obama addressed Tuesday night during his prime-time speech to Congress and home viewers as he attempted to address our economy’s downward spiral. 

Besides those viewers furious with Obama’s preempting of American Idol, others are upset by the stimulus bill’s $275 billion mortgage relief program that is also available to illegal aliens (See Corsi, “Home Mortgage Relief for Millions of Illegals,” 2/24/09, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=8996). We’re guessing it’s the ‘other America’ – the hardworking citizens – that is upset by this news and not the resentment and entitlement group.

Ready your Shovels! Start Digging (America Deeper in Debt)!

We learned Monday that Joseph Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, broke another Obama campaign promise with his announcement that our taxes are going up. After all, taxpayer dollars are needed to help foot the bill for the nationalization of health care (New York Times, Leonhardt, 2/25/09). The AP reported on Wednesday that there are close to 48 million uninsured people in our country. It doesn’t, however, address how many of those 48 million are illegal aliens.

Leonhardt’s article also states that Obama wants a significant “down payment” to the debt level of $634 billion over ten years. Yet, Obama’s Congressional address let this and trillions of dollars of new spending go unstated. The day after Obama’s talk, Gateway Pundit reported that the House approved another $410 billion in spending “with 9,000 earmarks.” The vote was along party lines, but “the House has approved $1.2 trillion dollars in spending in 12 days.” What’s more, the Democrats in the last two months have already “tripled the debt left by Bush” (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/house-approves-another-410-billion-in.html^, 2/25/09). That’s a substantial amount of money and our favorite blogger comment of the day sums it up best: “We’re spending ourselves out of a country” (blueyon’s response to “House OKs $410 Bill(ion) to Boost Domestic Spending,” newyahoo.com, 2/25/09).

Both of these stories follow yesterday’s report that Obama will provide $900 million to rebuild Gaza. As we discussed in an earlier blog (see “Gitmo Meets Geneva Convention Standards”), everyone knows that Hamas absconds with most of the aid and money that is provided to the Palestinians.

The Little Red Leftist Schoolhouse

Obama promised to beef up American education in his Congressional address. A lot of what he said sounded awfully sweet. Who can argue with his assertion that “a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a prerequisite”? On the other hand, we can argue vociferously against Obama’s contention that “we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks.” But why quibble? Following one of Obama’s favorite strategies, let’s just do a little redistribution of funds: Along with the aforementioned $ set aside to study swine odor and tat removal, let’s take the money that was set aside for Nancy Pelosi’s marsh mouse and give it to education. Let’s do the same with the bucks allocated for Harry Reid’s train from Disneyland to Vegas. And do we really need $1.2 million devoted to the study of mosquito trapping? Or $1.8 million for a honeybee lab? We know a lot of students who could put those bucks to good use.

Moreover, it remains to be seen whether Obama will fulfill his promises to bolster schooling at all levels, including early childhood and higher education. As Mitt Romney worries, Obama seems to be saying that “Government should be responsible for a child’s education from birth until their first job. Is that universal pre-school? Is that universal college?” (Hannity, FOX News, Feb. 26, 2009). If it is, it’s another sign of a swelling government; another sign that we’re digging a hole we’ll never climb out of. If you don’t like the hole metaphor, maybe Senator Judd Gregg’s “fiscal tsunami” better appeals to you. In either case, if we stick to Obama’s game plan, Judd believes “It is going to break the country” (Hannity, FOX News, Feb. 26, 2009). We’ll see what kind of incentives Obama provides for teacher performance. We’ll see exactly what he means when he claims that “We’ve made college affordable for nearly seven million more students.” As college educators, we’ve witnessed firsthand higher education take hit after financial hit. If college is more affordable for students, why are enrollment figures down? If college is more affordable, why are most universities – including the ones where we teach – looking for tuition hikes?

No Transparency for Obama’s Radical Leftist Agenda!

On Monday (Feb. 23), The Obama File reported that the president ordered defense officials to sign a pledge stating that they will not share 2010 budget data with “individuals outside the federal government.” Don’t worry, maybe the The New York Times will leak information to us. Or maybe not. Obama’s “secrecy pact” targets dozens of Bush-era Pentagon appointees that remain on the job. These men and women were “asked to stay on by the Obama administration until replacements are confirmed” (theobamafile.com, 2/25/09). Yet now the administration is working to freeze them out of the info loop.

Where is the transparency Obama promised? Star Parker wants to know, and she’s not alone. Parker asks, “As our new political leadership leads us into the fiscal twilight zone, is it too much to ask for a little honesty as they do it?” Star cites Obama’s claim that this crisis is due to “big banks that traded in risky mortgages . . . lenders that took advantage of homebuyers . . . homebuyers knowingly borrowed too much . . .” It’s not true.

Many fear that the $75 billion bailout subsidized by taxpayers is bringing the American Dream to an end. After all, “This could never happen in a county where private property was respected and people were not subsidized by government to buy what they can’t afford” (http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8792, 2/25/09).

The American Dream doesn’t have to end – but if it is to survive, we have to re-think the money pit Obama wants us to dig for years to come.

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

President Ronald Reagan knew how to run America at seemingly every level. We should reflect on the way Reagan fixed the economic shambles he inherited. If we did, we might better be able to fix our current crisis.

Reagan had an economic game plan that later came to be known as “Reaganomics” and “trickle-down economics.” Its principles are simple: cut government spending; cut labor and capital taxes; lessen government economic regulation; regulate the currency supply and in so doing, shrink inflation.

President Obama’s ‘stimulus bill’ charges full throttle in the opposite direction. Rather than make people responsible for their economic stability, it gives everyone an out – excuse us, a BAILout. It’s a terrible lesson that keeps getting repeated each time another company or sector of our economy gets a government boost.

Most troubling of all: it makes people think they are entitled to government assistance. It puts them in a childish mindset. They look to government as the parent and cast themselves as helpless infants. We’re on our way toward creating a nation of adult kids who never move out of their parents’ basements.

The result of Reaganomics was increased prosperity and responsibility acceptance on the part of each American citizen. Today, the result of our increasing dependence on government is increased irresponsibility and a gimme, gimme, gimme mentality.

To wit:

Nadya Suleman chooses to undergo fertility treatments and gives birth to octuplets – on top of the other six kids she already has – and it’s up to the rest of us to take care of them. Meanwhile, even as her home goes into foreclosure (scratch that: her parents home; the octomom doesn’t have her own house), she’s shopping for cosmetics at Nordstrom’s.

Dustin Dibble spends hours getting plastered in a New York bar. He stumbles to the subway and falls into the path of a train and loses a leg. The result: a jury awards him $2.3 million bucks for his reckless behavior (“Lush Money,” New York Post, Feb. 18, 2009, Metro Ed., pp. 1, 5).

We are creating a nation of those who are holding their hands out. They are the have-nots – the liberal victims. They believe it’s up to the haves – the responsible among us – to help them, not because we want to but because we have to.

Too many people in our culture have divorced themselves from self-reliance and responsibility for their own behavior. And even fewer are being held accountable for their actions.

But then, accountability, like Reaganomics, should be implemented via a trickle-down method. And look at the accountability – or lack thereof – that’s being modeled by government these days. Reagan was criticized because many believed that “trickle down economics” gave big cuts to the wealthy and big business. He believed that in time everyone would reap the benefits of such cuts. He was right.

Maybe today’s government officials should start doing the right thing – the responsible thing; the accountable thing – more often.

(Are you listening, Mr. Burris?)