George Rebane
‘The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth’ is a most interesting thesis put forward by George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen (also see his recent Average is Over). In the NYT essay he provides a long list of developments that spurred economies, forms of governance, and even the arts arising out of large conflicts between nation-states. Apparently remaining sedentary for too long is not good for individuals or societies. Cowen’s piece is certainly worth a read.
Obama’s presidency is definitely missing on all cylinders and seems to be heading for new lows that will make Bush2 compare favorably with how he has led the nation and the world. Most Americans today believe Obama is “less competent than” Bush2 as reported by the recent WSJ/NBC poll (here). Bret Stephens gives this laundry list of failures a compact review – ‘The Pace of Obama’s Disasters’ – that has been studiously ignored by the lamestream (another reason our leftwing readers get so riled up when they first run into some of these concepts on RR; they really believe we are a lone wolf pack howling in the forest). A telling example of leftwing media bias is its absolute silence on the failures of the various federal relief programs supposed to help people after Superstorm Sandy – short version: it’s a redo of FEMA after Katrina – ‘We’re from the government and we’re here to …, oh, never mind.’.
The failures from Obama’s foreign policy have now become legion. Even the nation’s independents have come to recognize that our president has surrounded himself with a band of “munchkin Metternichs” – see ‘The Collapsing Obama Doctrine’. America’s eyes roll heavenward in unison when the useful idiot in the WH press room assures us that Obama is briefed regularly by our witless national security guru Susan Rice. And even she has to make her way past Valerie Jarrett, that renowned expert from South Chicago in affairs national and international.
The claimed loss of IRS emails, from Lois Lerner and the six officials of most interest to the House, in the targeting of conservative groups is frank testimony to how stupid this administration considers its own constituency to be. Only the most dense of the Democratic rank and file believe the various versions of how such emails in a government bureaucracy were lost. Some lamebrain apologists even try to exhume Nixon’s 18.5 minutes of missing audio recordings as precedence for the email effrontery. But as Daniel Henninger points out in the 19jun14 WSJ, “The Watergate break-in was the professionals of the party in power going after the party professionals of the party out of power. The IRS scandal is the party in power going after the most average Americans imaginable.”
Bashing Bush2 has hardly taken a breather as the only excuse the lamestream’s loyal liberals can muster for this failed administration. And there we are always asked to focus on the Big Lie that Bush2 alone bamboozled the nation and took us into Iraq that today has again been allowed to become another quagmire on Obama’s watch. A reader sent me this video of prominent Democrats which should remind everyone what the mood and assessment of our national leadership was in those dark days after 9/11.
[21jun14 update] America's historical one-sided assault on free speech by the Left has recently featured the politically rigged attempt to prosecute Gov Scott Walker on what the Democrat DAs claim was a "criminal scheme" of campaign coordination. Never mind that two judges have now thrown the case out of court, the Left's lamestream has picked up the ball and is now running with it. Specifically, outlets promoting socialism, like the NYT, are citing the prosecutors' discredited indictment wordings as still having currency, and not as the blatant and unsubstantiated attack on the governor's First Amendment rights as ruled by the courts. Here is a sufficiently compact readable account of this latest progressive fusillade to discredit an opposing political figure in the press when the first sleazy attempt was thrown out of a court of law. Does anyone still wonder why RR labels that vast wasteland of journalism as the lamestream? Of course, the local Lefties' echoes of the Gray Lady's reportage may be excused due to the limited scope of their readings abetted by the burden of other more serious disabilities discussed at length elsewhere.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment