Barack Obama
March 9, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Civil War officers used to say that you can’t lead from the rear. Thousands of them gave their lives, leading their men the only way they knew how. No one asks Barack Obama to give up more than an occasional game of golf, but he still can’t bring himself to lead. In one of his administration’s many low moments, a White House aide explained Obama’s style as “leading from behind,”
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March 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Last week we posted Claremont Institute senior fellow Mark Helprin’s interview with Claremont Review of Books editor Charles Kesler here. Now comes the sardonic Mr. Helprin with “Psalm 23, newly revised according to modern principles.” In the fifth year of our Lord and Master Barack Obama, let us pray: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of debt, I fear no bankruptcy, for Obama is my shepherd.
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March 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Glenn Reynolds posts the image below, found on Facebook. It captures the theme of the stories of the week including the fear and loathing that Obama is retailing on the permanent campaign trial. Let’s add it to the record for future reference.
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March 1, 2013 — John Hinderaker
One would hope that the spectacle the Democrats have made of themselves over the prospect of a modest increase in federal spending for FY 2013 would be enlightening to a lot of voters. The Democrats’ craving for federal dollars is not unlike that of a junkie for heroin, and the lengths of dishonesty to which Barack Obama and the Democrats will go to keep the money flowing are likewise reminiscent
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February 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Bob Woodward has been blowing the whistle on Obamaworld full of lies on the sequester, most recently over the weekend in a Washington Post column. It’s a great old-fashioned story in a number of respects, which was the point I tried to make in my Obamaworld post. In any event, it seems to have Woodward’s juices flowing. This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Woodward blasted Obama’s “madness” for letting budget
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February 26, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama’s transparent mendacity about his responsibility for the sequester is revealing. The obtuse Chuck Todd doesn’t think it’s a story; he characterizes it as a traditionally sterile argument about who is to blame for the unpleasantness (which is the way the New York Times treats the issue it when it deigns to touch it). Todd can’t be that stupid, can he? True, it would be nice to know how
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February 19, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The gulf between Barack Obama and reality continues to grow, but Barry remains a legend in his own mind. Michael Ramirez brilliantly weaves together Obama’s penchant for vacations and his second-favorite sport with his appalling record when he is ostensibly working:
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February 13, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Is it over yet? On a feels-like basis, the length of the speech was Castroite. And not just the length! (Note to self: Remember to frame your observations in the form of a question.) Did the lady who stood in line for six hours to vote in Florida have a flashback during the speech? Here’s a question for conservatives: How come we didn’t realize during the Clinton administration how good
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February 12, 2013 — John Hinderaker
These numbers, from Gallup, are really quite stunning: The only area where Obama scores reasonably well is national defense, where most people think he has continued the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Other than that, after four-plus years, Americans have pretty well decided they don’t like what Obama is trying to accomplish. Tonight the president will push hard to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, an issue on which,
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February 10, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Byron York reports that President Obama will return his attention to unemployment in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday. I can’t wait. He seems to have wandered far from the subject over the last four years, but it’s probably for the best. His ideas for reducing unemployment — best represented in the trillion-dollar stimulus bill of 2009 — retard the kind of economic growth that fosters the creation
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February 10, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Machiavelli in Hell is the title of Sebastian De Grazia’s intellectual biography of the infamous Florentine philosopher that tends toward the current conventional view that Machiavelli was a misunderstood republican, which I think is not only mistaken but which drains much of the life and profundity out of Machiavelli’s complex and ambitious teaching. This was the subject of discussion in my graduate class at Pepperdine University on a recent Tuesday,
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February 7, 2013 — Steven Hayward
It is natural, and useful as well, that most politically engaged people dwell on the defects of their own camp while overestimating or failing to perceive the problems in the other camp. In the aftermath of the election result, conservatives are notably downcast, reflective, and at times vindictive against the factions (Tea Party, RINOs, etc.), candidates (Romney, Akin, etc) and key individuals (Karl—cough, cough—Rove) they believe are responsible for the
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January 31, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I had thought that Lindsey Graham would be the most effective questioner of Chuck Hagel at today’s hearing, and Graham did his usual fine job of “cross-examination.” But for my money, Ted Cruz topped Graham and everyone else with questions that exposed not just Hagel’s contempt for Israel, but his contempt for the United States. You can view the tape of Cruz’s devastating round with Hagel here. First, Cruz played
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January 29, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The thought that love has no pride is an old one. Indeed, it has become something of a cliché. Yet it is achieved the status of cliché by virtue of the truth in it. CBS’s venerable 60 Minutes show brought us an example of the cliché in action over the weekend. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft is smitten with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He put his professional skills aside
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January 28, 2013 — John Hinderaker
It has been amusing, in a black-humor sort of way, to see various media figures finally admit that Barack Obama is a far-left, out of the mainstream political figure. Just kidding; they don’t actually admit that. But at least they are now willing to acknowledge–most of them, anyway–that he is a liberal. “I told you so” is, as usual, cold comfort. Michael Ramirez sums up the last six years of
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January 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I think it would be a serious mistake to ignore or fail to attend closely to President Obama’s second inaugural address. It speaks to his ambition, his assault on the founding principles, and his attempt to realign the electorate on a misreading or misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the meaning of the founding principles. Attention must be paid. See, e.g., Yuval Levin’s “Obama’s second inaugural.” As R.J. Pestritto has demonstrated, the
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January 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Claremont Institute’s American Mind series with host Charles Kesler kicks off in earnest with an interview of Bill Bennett. The American Mind seeks to deliver the insights, ideas, and perspectives of our brightest conservative thinkers, writers and political philosophers, in a monthly series of intimate conversations hosted by Professor Kesler, editor of The Claremont Review of Books. We previewed the interview last week with its first segment. The interview
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