Why Obama is Just Not That Into YouIt sounds like a place where couples can seek counseling, but it's actually more like an OTB parlor. Over the past decade, Dr. Gottman has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on how frequently his clients will divorce; but while his foolproof system has made him a very rich man, his gambling has kept him out of the Marriage and Family Therapist Hall of Fame.
There's a psychologist who can predict with 91% accuracy whether a relationship will live or die. His name is Dr. John Gottman, and he runs something called The Marriage Clinic.
Gottman uses several factors to determine which marriages will succeed or fail. But the main one is this: contempt. If a spouse mocks the other, talks down to him, rolls eyes, or sneers, that marriage is a goner....or it's the basis for a hit family sitcom.
Gottman's seminal research reminds me of my friend, Laura, and her relationship with boyfriend, Justin. [...] It was a knot-in-the-stomach experience spending any time with them.I suspect the feeling was mutual, Robin.
While Laura was generally sweet and supportive, Justin would continually put her down.Maybe it's just me, but Justin and Laura seem less like Ike and Tina and more like Will and Grace.
Sometimes, it was subtle, for instance, an eye roll or a sarcastic remark.
Justin's pomposity is small potatoes compared to someone as contemptuous as our current President.
Obama's arrogance has been crystal clear from the start. He sneered at Hillary Clinton during a debate: "You're likable enough." Obama then demonstrated the class of a l3-year-old by using his middle finger to gesture about Hillary, menacingly.
Obama presented former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, with DVDs of American films that couldn't be played on British machines.It's one thing to beat the Germans' Enigma cipher machines and decode their military secrets, but it's a little unreasonable to expect the British to cope with a Region 1 DVD.
Our classy Prez gave the Queen an iPod loaded with his speeches.The Queen actually requested a video iPod to replace her older model, but while Obama did not in fact "load [it] with his speeches," the White House did add footage from the Queen's 2007 state visit to the U.S., which means it contained endless shots of Her Majesty making conversation with George W. Bush, which is a little like standing behind a veteran who's finally beginning to recover from PTSD and popping a paper bag.
But the quintessential dissing of our Mother Country had to be Obama's return of a bust of Winston Churchill, bestowed on the US by former Prime Minister Tony Blair after 9/11.
Apparently, the UK has taken note of Obama's bad manners; Barack and Michelle were excluded from the guest list of the party of the decade -- the Royal Wedding.As were all other foreign heads of state who were not also members of foreign royal families. Reagan was invited to the Royal Wedding of Charles and Diana, but didn't go, partly because no sitting U.S. President has attended the nuptials of foreign royalty and he didn't wish to set a precedent, and party because he was confused by Di's hair-do and thought she was Dorothy Hamill.
Obama's contempt is so far reaching that it transcends beyond the human realm.
Even God is not exempt from Obama's hubris. Obama mocks the Bible, leaves God out of the Constitution, and covers up crucifixes at the College of Notre Dame.It's even worse than you know, Robin, because Obama has apparently broken into my apartment, and removed God entirely from my copy of the Constitution! I searched the whole thing, from the Preamble to the 27th Amendment, and not a sign of Him.
Even more disturbing about Obama is not what he does, but what he fails to do -- most especially, protect this country
Obama allows Radical Islam to grow unfettered from within and without.
And talk about playing favorites...Obama practices reverse racism by preferring his brothers above all others. Obama's DOJ refuses to prosecute the New Black Panthers, through they threaten to kill "cracker babies."
According to a DOJ whistleblower, the department will investigate no injustices against whites.
But we're not just talking egotism here. Even those presidents who were full of themselves still loved this country. There's something deeper and darker at work here: and it is contempt, if not outright hatred.
Has there ever been an American President more contemptuous of his own people than Obama? Has any other President been as ungrateful for the honors bestowed on him?
The question here is: Why? Why does Obama turn his nose up on everyone else? Why does he see himself as a gift to mankind?
Perhaps it all started with his radical family who disliked this nation and viewed little Barry as the Great Black Hope. While all parents see their little tykes as special, young Barry may have gotten a Messiah Complex.
As an adult, Obama hooked up with revolutionaries who fed the delusion that he was the Second Coming. For instance, Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan preached to his flock that Obama was the Black Messiah. Obama himself told Harry Reid that he has a "gift."
But why wouldn't Obama see himself as special? He's like most leftists who view themselves as saviors with grandiose schemes to save the world. Why wouldn't Obama and the left regard themselves as superior -- aren't they going to outshine God by configuring a heaven on earth?The only problem I have with this plan is that our national anthem will be a Belinda Carlisle song.
Human Events/Redstate Facebook Petition
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:Distinguished, prominent, real Americans like Mike Hunt, Nebraska State Senator Hugh Jass, Dr. Ivana Humpalot, Ambassador Heywood Jablome, real estate mogul Seymore Butz, and California State University, Fresno Professor Incontinentia Buttocks.
We, the editors and staff of HUMAN EVENTS and RedState.com, and the tens of thousands of Americans who have attached our signatures to this petition...
…salute your success in creating an extraordinary medium through which millions of people can make their voices heard.It’s like the purity of ancient Greek democracy, if the citizens of Athens had used the Ecclesia primarily to post cat videos and declare themselves Mayor of the Steak Corral.
We also applaud your recognition that Facebook is now an influential public platform and key vehicle for political expression.Because it's usually pretty tough to get wealthy narcissists to admit their cash cow is the shit.
Your recent Town Hall with President Obama held on April 20, 2011 was an impressive example of that. However, given Facebook’s dominance of the internet...Yes, I remember when there was lots of stuff on the internet -- newspapers, blogs, Youtubes, Japanese rope bondage tutorials, bicycle sprocket dealerships with their virtual "shopping carts," knitting patterns, pornography, and, of course, galleries of lovingly scanned menus from extinct restaurants -- but now it's just Farmville, sneaky, ill-advised changes to relationship status, and blurry photos of your toe fungus taken while drunk and posted in the middle of the night.
...we believe Facebook has a duty to provide “equal time” to the eventual Republican candidate, just as the other private media companies that control the public airwaves are required to do."And were, in fact, required to do about all issues of public importance, before Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which nobody better even THINK about trying to revive, because it would be the moral equivalent of an assassination attempt on Rush Limbaugh. But even though Facebook doesn’t use the public airwaves, we’d like you to pretend we never gutted the law and that it applies to you, even though it wouldn’t even if we hadn’t. Mm-kay?"
We hereby respectfully ask that you recognize your opportunity and responsibility to provide equal time to both sides of the national political debate...To demonstrate just how sincere is their respect, here's Human Events editor Jason Mattera trying to pull a Daily Show by pretending to interview badly edited footage of Mark Zuckerberg. (Spoiler Alert: Jason makes poo-poo and sexytime jokes):
Jason Mattera Demonstrates Why Political Humor Should Come with a Child-Proof Cap.
...by pledging that you will invite the eventual Republican presidential nominee to share the stage with you at a Town Hall event identical to that which you held for President (and candidate) Obama.Identical in every respect, except the Republican will almost certainly be white, so you won’t need to ask him to provide two forms of photo I.D.
We believe that not doing so will be a violation of the trust millions of Americans have placed in Facebook.I guess I haven't been getting my money's worth out of Facebook, because I primarily trust it as a source of Happy Birthdays, Super-Poking Penguins, and bitter complaints that the new "German Chocolate Cake Sipper" cocktail at Fridays is not literally a cake you can drink.
Your members include people of all political persuasions, including more than fifty million right-leaning Americans.I'm pretty sure Jason just pulled that figure out of his ass, perhaps during the bathroom break he took in the middle of the Zuckerberg interview. Anyway, there are more women on Facebook than men, and women tend to vote Democratic, especially in years when Republicans are offering a new anti-choice bill every other day, so by all means let's let demographics to determine the political content we're allowed to ignore.
That Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes helped lead Obama's 2008 online campaign already gives many of us reason to believe you lean 100% opposite.Is it possible to lean 100%? At a certain point (50%? 90% at the most?) wouldn't you be falling, and then eventually lying down?
Failing to give equal time to the Republican presidential nominee will further position Facebook squarely and irredeemably as a biased, untrustworthy member of the liberal media — just another political tool where censorship rules — rather than a free and open public gathering place. At risk will be the loyalty of countless right-leaning Facebook members.Outraged and disappointed right wingers might refuse to post Photoshopped images of chimps with Obama's face as an act of passive resistance. Oath Keepers and Neo-Nazi militias might switch to Evite to arrange their meet-ups, and Sarah Palin might stop posting her selections from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which would be just as frustrating as the time my second grade teacher started reading Where The Red Fern Grows to us the second week of June, then suddenly school was over for the year and we never found out how it ended!
We urge you to recognize the legitimacy of our request......by not tittering behind your hand like that.
...by posting your pledge, as CEO, that Facebook will host the future Republican presidential nominee at a Town Hall meeting identical in all respects to that recently undertaken for President Obama.Douglas C. Neidermeyer...Sergeant at Arms.
Respectfully submitted,
HUMAN EVENTS/RedState.com EditorsThank you, HUMAN EVENTS, for fighting on behalf of the little people, even though I know you're hoarse and have a sore throat from shouting your name all the time. Now, if you wouldn't mind, would you contact the Twitter people and get them to address the gross disparity between my total followers and Ashton Kutcher's? Thanks.
I don't know, Adam. Somehow, "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies," doesn't sound like FDR, it sounds more like The Sphinx from Mystery Men..."Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies," declared President George Walker Bush nine days after 9-11, "justice will be done." I've always thought that that speech, delivered to a Joint Session of Congress on September 20th, was the one of the finest Presidential orations of my lifetime -- certainly the best to be delivered in that place since either General MacArthur's 1951 Farewell speech or FDR's call for Congress to declare war against Japan.
Now it is a promise fulfilled and, as the details of the sensational operation that killed Osama bin Laden come to light, it is becoming increasingly clear that while all honor and credit for the successful execution of the mission must go to the superlative members of the United States Armed Forces, the strategic vision that brought this glorious moment into being was that of George W. Bush.Wow, I've seen wingnuts sprout wood over The Decider before, but this is like someone put a pair of Dockers on a lodgepole pine.
I believe it involved bullets.Let's review what we know about bin Laden's death and how it came to be.
He walked kind of slow for a courier, liked to window shop, and stopped frequently to tie his shoe.The CIA was able to find him by tracking a courier. This was a process that took years.
Ah, so it was after they claimed to have stopped waterboarding prisoners? Seems like the Bush Administration wasted a lot of washcloths and Aquafina for nothing.It actually began during the Bush Administration -- in 2007. How did the Intelligence Community find the courier who eventually took them to bin Laden? They found him through information gained from interrogating terrorist prisoners.
Let's repeat that point because it needs to be emphasized. Ultimately, bin Laden was found and killed as a result of information gained from the interrogation of a captured terrorist. Actually, given all of the ink and pixels that have been spilled over this subject, it bears repeating one more time: bin Laden's death is a direct result of information gained from the interrogation of detainees, reportedly at the famed Guantanamo Bay prison camp.But former CIA Director Michael Hayden said the information was gleaned at one of the Agency's "black sites," not Guantanamo. I guess it's true -- failure is an orphan, while success has a thousand Michael Lohan-style fathers.
Given what we now know, how many people still think that the opponents of Guantanamo Bay -- including the current resident of the White House -- were right when they screamed about its supposed inhumanity, plotted to close it, and vowed to move terrorist prisoners into civilian courts? It would seem that George Bush and the defenders of his detainee policy were right all along.
The Bush Doctrine ("In what sense, Charlie?"): When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.The death of bin Laden and the broader course of the Global War on Terror during the two and a half years of the Obama Administration reflect the reality that the policies of the Bush Administration in this area, for all of the hysterical condemnation and calumny they endured, were the best and most reasonable response to 9-11 available to the United States and to the world.
Yep. Bush closed the CIA office dedicated to catching Bin Laden, and Obama reopened it. Continuity!The continuity of American anti-terror policy appears to have been the key to the success of this operation.
But Bush had already ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate the shrubbery on his ranch, so Bin Laden had to wait until the Pentagon could send a guy over to the Home Depot in a pickup truck to hire some day laborers.The courier was identified under Bush
Or we might just get bored and attack another country that had nothing to do with 9/11.This is the realization of the sort of "patient justice" that President Bush promised a decade ago when he declared, "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest."
Except for a really nice McMansion down the street from the Pakistani West Point. Still, Bush forced him to move out of that cave in the mountains.That is a vision that was made into a reality in the years that followed, as the United States and its real allies waged a relentless campaign against al-Qaeda and its leader that, ultimately, left it without any refuge anywhere in the world.
While I have come to appreciate the dictatorship and adult diapers that President Bush provided.I have increasingly grown to appreciate the vision and adult leadership that President Bush provided.
In my foolish headstrong youthfulness, I earned for efficiency and results, but President Bush showed me that the answer, as always, is stasis and mediocrity.It is clear to me that the course he chose after September 11th, even if it often left me impatient and eager for more stark and dramatic results, was the correct one -- a middle course between one that would leave America more vulnerable to terrorism and an extreme one that might have instantly brought on the sort of global Holy War that bin Laden desired.
Not all his policies -- Obama clearly couldn't see the wisdom of Bush's decision to break up with Bin Laden ("I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.") and get on with his life and date another Arab boogeyman. Still, you'll notice that even though Bush has been gone from the White House for over two years, there aren't any tumbleweeds on the South Lawn.And, in this area, we ought to at least credit President Obama for having the flexibility to, after spending years criticizing them, quietly recognize the wisdom of President Bush's policies and to adopt so many of them as his own.
Of course, this does not mean that the war is over. Far from it. Final victory will be a product of eternal vigilance. The great unfinished challenge in this war remains the threat posed by Iran and, of course, recent events also show us that a new framework for dealing with Pakistan has to be found.
Mr. Yoshida then summed up by announcing that his aim in life is "to do SOMETHING BOLD AND DRAMATIC, FORCEFUL & DYNAMIC, A STATEMENT of my manhood for the world to see."I don't know about the rest of you but with both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dead, I think that it's probably Muammar Gaddafi's turn next.
