Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.. day late and dollar short I am.. sorry...

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.


Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

Happy Anniversary to Paul and Heather.

We love you.. .and many many more....... Mom and Dad Moffat

iphone folks.. new accessory....

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Profound, so simple and true!

"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it."

Alan Saporta

Humm... guess us ole okies are not the only ones who hate higher taxes?!



Actually nothing new here... the idiot in waiting has never listened to the people, nor has his party... All they want to do is keep us under their wing, and in debt to them... sigh... come on America, it's time to take our country back!

I am a former member of US Jaycees and a JCI Senator... and "we believe that economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise...!" The power of words, short and well written, can solve so many problems.

this is want I believe....  

The Jaycee Creed

WE BELIEVE:
That faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life;
That the brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations;
That economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise;
That government should be of laws rather than of men;
That earth's great treasure lies in human personality;
And that service to humanity is the best work of life.

...and in believing, it helped me become...!

Friday, June 25, 2010

from Trisha, not sure who took this

but it's Isabella Ann!

One of the nicest places to order mower parts on the web, most prompt, most courteous, most reliable

Small Engines Parts Warehouse



They have most all parts for most brands of anything small,

PLUS for those of you with a file system like mine... hahaha...

they have the owners manuals online and the parts books online to look up parts, etc.

just saying, if you need parts and can wait for them to be delivered to your home..

this is the DEAL! Have used them for several years. Don't know that they save you money, but I have never been sent the wrong part! That is something. And if you can't find it, send an email and they get right back with correct information. very unusual in this day and time!

If you have others sites providing services that are honorable and you enjoy using, please pass them on to us to post here for us all to check out? ...

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Just in and hot off the wires... lookie... lookieeeee.... I am so very proud of you Jonathan Scott Moffat, way to go...





Just off the wires.... Ada, OK, 12:00 Noon, CN News is reporting: (and we are busting our buttons!)...

First plaque Jonathan Scott Moffat has received from Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby.

"Pretty cool",  reports Jonathan.

Jonathan completed a managers training program. There are levels 1-4, with 1 being for administrators, 2 for directors, 3 for managers, 4 for supervisors. I completed level 3, so now I go for level 2.

Basically you complete a ton of classes at the Nation and through ECU (management type classes and cultural classes).

The program is to create a big pool of leaders that can be used to pull managers, directors and administrators from when positions open up.

Jonathan reports he is very proud of this accomplishment and so are we...

Way to go Jonathan, way to go!!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Get ready kiddos... the obubba ride is just starting .....

he has almost single handedly put this nation into bankruptcy...  yes it started way back even before Clinton...  and each President could have stopped it, including the one now who ran as our lord and savior... but alas he chose not too, so here we are, in just a year and half, he has increased our nations debt to the breaking point adding almost 3 trillion dollars to it... heard an economist say couple of weeks ago, that each trillion cost this nation a Billion in interest each month...  

and the great health care that does nothing but reward his cronies... well, OSU announced a huge increase in our health insurance for this coming year... due to the new health care and obubba.

My banker says interest will increase as the recovery kicks in due to inflation and that it will probably peak between 25 and 35%, so love your cards and notes now, for  in the distant future, you will wish you did not have them...  Ann and I built our home when interest was 13% for a home loan.. the cheapest around in 1982 and within a few years, it went to 28% before heading down....  I can tell you what happens to ones budget when interest takes 1/4 of each dollar...

A CPA friend of mine says Taxes on average Americans with average income will raise about 10 to 15% more and if all taxes are thrown in, probably will be closer to 25% increase in all taxes. (He voted for Obubba, but thinks now perhaps he made a mistake, with a tear in his eye.)

If you take all taxes paid by a self employed person and add them up and they are in the upper middle class rate... with SS added in, etc and the joy of owning personal property (taxes) and sales taxes.. one right now today is paying about 58 cents on the dollar to fund government. This leaves 42 cents (for Heather!) for the small business person to operate on. I am not sure this is what our founders anticipated?!  and just imagine if our taxes and insurance increase 25%...  about 15 cents ... then we are are 73 cents of every dollar...  leaving 27 cents for us to survive on.  73 government and 27 for us... by 2012.  

Right now we have an artist management company among several... and we hold out 38 cents of every dollar ... leaving them 62 cents.. and they bleed.. but in the end.. it's not enough to hardly pay their federal taxes..   but it sure wakes them up to the joys of ownership and of paying taxes.. haha...  

Wonder what will be left for our grandchildren when they enter the workplace... Hopefully, with each election after this we will put in new folks with new ideas who want to work and then every term or two, replace them with new blood and ideas and keep this country moving forward, breaking the graft and corruption that is embedded in it from politics as usual...

Just fyi.. the one in uniform... IS NOT THE CLOWN...

Monday, June 21, 2010

Eight dead among 52 shot across city over weekend :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

Eight dead among 52 shot across city over weekend :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State


obubba land..... sounds more like something right out of a western movie... and they want to take away our guns.... wow... guess there is not enough crime... looks like we might need an open carry law instead of concealed carry law!! the bad is sure winning now it seems...

Yesterday was quite a day .... for our family.



Jake's Baptism and Jake,Trisha and Isabella joining University Heights Baptist Church in Stillwater.
(photos and video by Phillip Moffat. Tammy Moffat took photo above.)


Yesterday two days after Jake's 28th birthday and on Father's Day 2010, Jake was baptized and he and Trisha and Isabella Ann joined the University Heights Baptist Church, where they have been attending for last three months or so. He was joined by his oldest brother Phillip Moffat and Tammy and Austyn, and his sister Heather Blankinship and her kiddos Andrew and Madison, his Grandmother Elinore Moffat, and his Aunt Marilyn Moffat along with his Mom and Dad, Ann and Stan Moffat.

We are very proud of you, Jake...  and of your family.

PS.. in one of the photos you will see Rockford Brown, who with his witness, presence and friendship with Jake, helped make this special day in Jake's life happen. And then, you know me... yelp.. we all went to a Mexican Restaurant on the west side of Stillwater (I don't know the name and if I did, probably could not spell it, right Austyn?) to have a Father's Day lunch that was very relaxing and was the perfect way to top of such an exciting time with family.. Two day run really... Jonathan and family came up on Saturday and we all got together... for Jake's Birthday, Fathers Day and Great Grandma's Birthday celebration early...  wow... don't know if at my age, the ole ticker with hold up for such celebrating... haha.. oh well, what a way to go... !! and then we heard Mike might get to go home from hospital sometime later this week, more great news.. .

FCC Will Tame the Internet—Or Kill It - CNBC

FCC Will Tame the Internet—Or Kill It - CNBC

For those of you who are thinking of the ipad... this closes and has two screens...

Toshiba Libretto W100
Toshiba's new dual touch-screen laptop, the Libretto W100
Toshiba has unveiled a new dual-screen, touch-screen mini laptop designed for surfing the internet, sending and receiving emails and keeping up to speed with social networking sites on the move.

This arrived in my email bright and early yesterday morning... thanks Heather, Paul and kiddos....

Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill | Washington Examiner

Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill | Washington Examiner

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Not sure if everyone enjoyed the day as much as I did...

We just finished up one the awesome days a family can have where they are all there with only a few missing...   wow... what a wonderful day indeed.

In this day and time, to think that all can find a way to make it happen is almost unbelievable!

Thanks to everyone who made it happen! Great way to celebrate Jake's 28th Birthday, Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Great Grandma's 91st birthday (sort of).... 

Thank you to Jon's for the neat tree face and to Andrew and family for the Lincoln book... Awesome ... thank you so much.

But thanks to all for just coming together...  what a glorious day!  

will put more photos up later.. or in a few days..

And FYI.. the food was 'killer'.... good... 

bella explaining things to her great grandma...

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blow birthday boy blow...

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hula hoop time

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hummmmmm



Bang.....                                  Bang........  both have guns drawn.... hummmm
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One of the best birthday cakes I have ever had the priviledge of diving into...

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awe... the look that kills men's hearts...

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Sometimes it's the mystery that catches one's eye.... and mind...

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Kaitlyn, Isabella and Madison... our three girls...

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When will we get to eat dessert???

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Heather and I walked back to my office at home to check on the kiddos.. and this is what we found.. Ms. Madison Ann working..

phone in ear, on computer with Word open typing in an order.... notice both hands on keyboard and holding phone with ear.. where oh where did she learn this, hummmmmmmm
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Jake's booboooooo ouch....

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Ann's moon plant blooming this evening

Friday, June 18, 2010

Lynyrd Skynyrd Honored by U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Honored by U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. 

Lynyrd SkynyrdWASHINGTON, DC – Lynyrd Skynyrd was honored this week by the U.S. Congress by Florida Congressman Connie Mack, and Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus along with recognizing the achievements of the band during a reception at the U.S. Capitol.
The congressional honor for the group, who are performing in Birmingham tonight, came during a visit to Washington including stops at both the Capitol and the White House.
“The Lynyrd Skynyrd band is a true voice of the South and a legend in the music world.  ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ is one of the best advertisements for my state and we now even proudly display the words on our license plates.  We deeply appreciate the fact that the band does a lot to entertain our troops and support military families.  They bring enjoyment to their many fans and it’s a pleasure to welcome them to our nation’s capital,” said Bachus, who is dean of the Alabama House delegation.
After a hosted tour of the Capitol by Bachus’ staff, Representatives Bachus and Mack presented a Congressional Record tribute to the band members, including Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, and Rickey Medlocke, recognizing the band’s career and successes.

The Congressional Record tribute follows.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

RECOGNITION OF THE MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF LYNYRD SKYNYRD BY CONGRESSMEN SPENCER BACHUS AND CONNIE MACK
 
In the music world, it is challenging enough for a band to record one hit song, much less become a voice for an entire region and a true icon.  That is why Congressman Connie Mack and I are pleased to jointly recognize the accomplishments and patriotic spirit of the legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd. 
 
From humble beginnings, Lynyrd Skynyrd has become one of the most revered and accomplished bands in the history of music, having sold nearly 30 million records worldwide in the  last four decades.  Through their live performances and the music and songs still played on radio stations around the world every day, the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd have established themselves as timeless artists who transcend any one musical era or generation. 
 
As validated by their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd has had a seminal impact on the development of rock and country music and a profound influence on the career development of many artists who followed in their creative footsteps. 
 
Through their collective voices, the band has become a beacon for regional identity and pride in the American South.  This is perhaps best epitomized by the song “Sweet Home Alabama,” an anthem so universally identified with the state of Alabama that it is the official motto displayed on license plates.
 
Since their start in Jacksonville, Florida in the late 1960s, Lynyrd Skynyrd has been a spokesman for the everyday working man and woman, the friends and neighbors of their formative years.  Their ability to capture a unique part of the American spirit has given their music emotional meaning to many fans and built a legacy that continues to grow year after year. 
  
Amid triumph and loss, these sons of the south have evolved from band to close-knit family.  A tragic airplane crash in 1977 claimed original members Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, but Ronnie’s brother Johnny carried on the tradition as the new vocalist.   Devoted fans also remember and cherish the contributions of Allen Collins, Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, and Ean Evans.  Today, led by core members Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Rickey Medlock, and Michael Cartellone, Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to share an unbreakable bond with the fans they count as family as well. 
 
Lynyrd Skynyrd has been a generous supporter of our men and women in the armed forces for many years.  The band has long understood that our military personnel bravely and unselfishly stand guard over our everyday security and freedom.  They have enthusiastically raised money for military families and played countless shows for our service members in uniform.  Their song “Red, White, and Blue” was written as a tribute to the men and women who serve in the defense of freedom. 
 
As representatives of timeless American values and champions of working class heroes, Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to entertain and inspire millions of fans across the world.  Along with Congressman Mack, I find it highly appropriate that the people’s House takes time to recognize this classic band for lasting contributions not just to the world of music, but to American popular culture as a whole.

Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur - US News and World Report

Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur - US News and World Report

I really would quit posting these little tidbits, but so enjoy the truth finally coming out about obubba.... finally America is seeing what we saw when he announced for the senate in Illinois, let alone for the Presidency.


The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Mr. Carter's fault that the American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, but he handled it badly, and suffered. He defied the rule of the King in "Pippin," the Broadway show of Carter's era, who spoke of "the rule that every general knows by heart, that it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart." Mr. Carter's opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced he mostly created himself. History didn't impose it.
But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.


It isn't Mr. Obama's fault that an oil rig blew in the Gulf and a gusher resulted. He already had two wars and the great recession. But the lack of adequate federal government response appropriately redounds on him. In a Wall Street Journal investigation published Thursday, reporters Jeffrey Ball and Jonathan Weisman wrote the federal government at first moved quickly, but soon "faltered." "The federal government, which under the law is in charge of fighting large spills, had to make things up as it went along." It hadn't anticipated a spill this big. The first weekend in May, when water was rough, contractors hired by BP to lay boom "mostly stayed ashore," according to a local official. "Shrimpers took matters into their own hands, laying 18,000 feet of boom," compared to about 4,000 feet by BP's contractors.
The administration's failure to take impressive action after the spill dinged its reputation for competence. The president's failure to turn things around Tuesday night with a speech damaged his reputation as a man whose rhetorical powers are such that he can turn things around with a speech. He lessened his own mystique. Reaction among his usual supporters was, in the words of Time's Mark Halperin, "fierce, unforeseen disappointment." Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post called the speech "profoundly underwhelming," a "feeble call to action." Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich called the speech "vapid." Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times said the president looked "awkward and robotic." MSNBC's Keith Olbermann famously said "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Chris Matthews scored "a lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk." Mr. Olbermann, on Mr. Obama's well-written peroration: "It's nice but, again, how? Where was the 'how' in this speech when the nation is crying out for 'how'?"


As for the center, Nielsen reported that 32 million people watched the speech, as compared to 48 million viewers that watched the State of the Union. Ronald Reagan once said you should never confuse the reviews with the box office. This was the box office voting with its clickers.The right didn't like the speech either.
No reason to join the pile on, but some small points. Two growing weaknesses showed up in small phrases. The president said he had consulted among others "experts in academia" on what to do about the calamity. This while noting, again, that his energy secretary has a Nobel Prize. There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the "small people" in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.
And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, "I want to know why." But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty.
Throughout the speech the president gestured showily, distractingly, with his hands. Politicians do this now because they're told by media specialists that it helps them look natural. They don't look natural, they look like Ann Bancroft gesticulating to Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker."


The president could move his hands because he was not holding a hard copy of his speech. Normally presidents have had a printed copy of the speech in their hands or on the desk, in case the teleprompter freezes or fails. Mr. Obama's desk was shiny and empty. A White House aide says the director of Oval Office operations had a hard copy just off camera, and was following along as the president spoke so that if the prompter broke he'd be able to give it to the president at the spot he left off.
But that would look a little startling, an arm suddenly darting into the frame to hand the president a script. And the pages could fall. If one were in the mood for a cheap metaphor one would say this is an example of the White House's tendency not to anticipate trouble.
There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning. In this he is like Jimmy Carter, who needed Richard Nixon, or rather the Watergate scandal, which made him president. Mr. Carter needed Richard Nixon standing in the corner looking like he'd spent the night sleeping in his suit as it hangs in the closet. The image is from Joe McGinnis's "The Selling of the President, 1968." Mr. Carter needed to be able to point at Nixon and say, "I'm not him. He dirty, me clean. You hate him, like me." Carter's presidency was given coherence and meaning by Nixon, Watergate, and without it that presidency seemed formless. Mr. Obama, in the same way, needs Mr. Bush standing in the corner like Boo Radley, saying "Let's invade something!" But Mr. Bush is wisely back home in Texas finishing a book, and the president never sounds weaker than when he suggests his predicament is all his predecessor's fault.
Mr. Obama needs Mr. Bush in the corner and doesn't have him. That's part of why he looks so alone out there.
And seems so snakebit, so at the mercy of forces. When you're snakebit you get some sympathy, and some will come. With all the president's woe there will be some counter-reaction among commentators, journalists and others. There will likely be among the Democratic leadership, too. "Love him or not he's what we've got, and he's what we have for the next two years. Help the guy, cool the criticism, punch back for him." But it's also true that among Democrats—and others—when the talk turns to the presidency it turns more and more to Hillary Clinton. "We may have made a mistake. She would have been better." Sooner or later the secretary of state is going to come under fairly consistent pressure to begin to consider 2012. A hunch: She won't really want to. Because she has enjoyed being loyal. She didn't only prove to others she could be loyal, a team player. She proved it to herself. And it has only added to her luster.
As for the president, the great question is what you do when you start to feel snakebit. Maybe he'll start to doubt his own moves and instincts. Maybe not. Jimmy Carter didn't. He fought hard for re-election in 1980, and until near the end thought he'd win. He trusted the American people, and in an odd way he trusted his luck.

St. Mary's Hospital

Saw Uncle Mike last night. He is doing great, looking like his old self... great spirits. Told him Ann and I were going to come up on our bike, but decided against it since it was so windy, and he laughed, knowing better!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

This is one of Heather Ann's photo's from the 'Wooden Bat Tournament 2010' in Stillwater. If you think little league is just boys being boys... study the intensity of the faces, and all he is doing is sliding into home... Heather, GREAT JOB!!


Unknown boys of summer at a baseball tournament in Stillwater that Andrew played in. What is known is this photo was taken by Heather Ann B. and it's a great photo that sums it all up! The call does not matter, it's about playing the game, and how you play... and these young men are in fact playing for keeps!

She has many more in her photo albums on dotphoto.com. check them out! (Click the photo to enlarge!)

Way to go Heather!!

Friday, June 11, 2010

For my fellow firefighter friends and those who support them... oh my goodness...



Years ago, a feed client of ours, walked into our business talking on the phone just a laughing up a storm.... I mean belly laughing... and handed me the phone... and I heard hello, this is Jerry... nough about me, how bout you?... and then started telling me about his good friend Wes Thurman who had just handed me the phone... needless to say - I was speechless... and something I will remember till I die... his laugh, etc... and then Wes had him tell me this story...

I had forgot about this till a friend of mine posted it on line this am....

one never knows who or where... sometimes the world gets real small... haha...

but nough bout me... how bout you?

If you know Wes, this is his saying too... it's seems I now know where he picked it up.. haha..
Wes and Jerry grew up together, and needless to say, there are many stories shared over this call...

From Jonathan this am.... I want to hire this drummer for a client's band I am working with.. haha.. now that would be a show!!



watch the drummer.... he is GOOD!!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

I am sorry if you find this boring or mundane or don't agree... but I feel this President is KILLING America and I want something left for my family and their families... I have never seen such a lack of leadership, nor of concern for the American people as he brings to the table. It's as if he is in another world. Well Mr. Obubba... I care. I love this country, and I don't like your obubbaism!


Obama and the Trouble With Voting 'Present'

Weak and radical, the president looks more like Jimmy Carter all the time.

When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007, Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report wrote "Obama's history of voting 'present'" in Springfield, Ill.—even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues . . . raises questions . . . Voting 'present' is one of the three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with 'yes' and 'no') but it's almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office."
Mr. Gonzales's words were prescient. Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present. That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The president was late recognizing the disaster's magnitude, late in visiting the region, late in approving requests by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and late in feigning outrage. He has never offered an independent plan to stop the leak.
Mr. Obama also seems disinterested in hearing from experts about the spill. The White House's "Deep Water Horizon Response Timeline" doesn't list a single meeting between Mr. Obama and industry experts, though he did send Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others to Houston May 12 to meet with BP and others.
Yet while the president says his Noble Prize-winning energy secretary has been "examining every contingency," Mr. Chu was clueless about BP's plans to install a cap over the well to funnel oil to a vessel on the surface. As the New York Times reported last Saturday, "After the cap was successfully placed, Mr. Chu wondered aloud why oil was still spewing." BP engineers had to explain that oil was still coming from vents that "would be closed very slowly to ensure that mounting pressure would not force the cap off."
Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to "plug the damn hole" (now that's a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC's Matt Lauer he's in search of an "ass to kick."
But the main political behind that's being kicked is Mr. Obama's. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington's handling of Katrina in August 2005.
This pattern of being merely present has been apparent almost since the first days of the Obama presidency. He may unveil his mighty teleprompter to help pass what Congress has drafted, but this White House seems strangely disconnected from crafting legislation.
For example, last year's stimulus was largely drafted by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, one of Congress's most liberal members. As a result, what passed was a wasteful spending bill rather than an economic growth package.
And faced with a growing mountain of debt, Mr. Obama passed the issue off to an ineffectual commission whose report is due after the election. After growing the size of the federal government by a quarter in just over a year, he now says he'd like agencies to try to find 5% cuts in their budgets.
On other controversies—the attempt of high-ranking aides to entice candidates not to challenge incumbent Democratic senators, the details of cap-and-trade legislation, the resolution of big conflicts between the House and Senate versions of financial regulation, and the drafting of comprehensive immigration reform—Mr. Obama appears to be removed, distant and detached, unwilling or unable to provide the adult supervision Washington requires.
The result is that he receives a 38% approval and 52% disapproval rating on his handling of the economy in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The GOP enjoys a nine-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen's latest generic ballot.
This is causing the public to revisit concerns it's had about Mr. Obama since he clinched the Democratic nomination in March 2008. Then the ABC/Washington Post Poll reported that 46% of Americans found him too "inexperienced" to be an effective president, the highest number ever for a major party presidential nominee. In October, just before the election, ABC/Washington Post asked the question again: 44% called Mr. Obama too inexperienced. On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is providing plenty of evidence to validate those concerns.
Americans might hope the president's diffidence when it comes to the hard work of government might mitigate his more extreme liberal tendencies. No such luck. Mr. Obama is an odd mixture of passivity and radicalism. He's happy to be a cheerleader for policies (like nationalizing health care) that many Americans find dangerously liberal.
The country has had another president both weak and radical at the same time: Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

The Alien in the White House - from Wall Street Journal today.


The Alien in the White House

The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.
There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.
Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.
A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.
Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.
Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.
Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."
And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."
He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."
Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.
Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.
It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.
It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.
It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.
So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.
It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.
They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.
The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.