Barack Obama

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Featured image Three stories in today’s news–none of them the type of story I would normally write about–illustrate a common theme. The first is from Britain, where eco-crusaders Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are being accused of hypocrisy for repeatedly zipping back and forth to Nice on a private jet. Meanwhile, Prince William booked his family on a £73 commercial flight to Scotland, in what is viewed as a rebuke of his »

Joe Biden and the black vote

Featured image Joe Biden has two huge assets in his run for the Democratic nomination. First, he’s perceived as, and polls show him to be, the Democrat most likely to defeat President Trump. Second, he has strong support from African-American voters. The second asset is related to the first, but not that closely. The main reasons why Biden has such strong support from African-Americans are (1) the fact that he was Barack »

In One Respect, Trump Is a Lot Like Obama

Featured image For the first two years of President Trump’s administration, Democratic Party press outlets would recite, ritualistically, that he was a historically unpopular president. We haven’t seen much of that lately. In fact, for most of his first term Trump has been as popular as Barack Obama was during his first term. You can see that graphically in this Rasmussen Reports chart: During Obama’s first term, his approval rating was usually »

“Obama Had to Know”

Featured image In his now-famous interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Trump was asked whether he thought Barack Obama was in on Russiagate: In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump was asked, “You clearly believe there was a group of people working against you. Do you think President Obama was behind it?” “I would say that he certainly must have known about it because it went very high up on the chain, »

CRB: True believers

Featured image We continue our preview of the new (Spring) issue of the Claremont Review of Books hot off the press. It went into the mail on Monday and is accessible online to subscribers now. Buy an annual subscription including immediate online access here for the modest price of $19.95. If you love trustworthy essays on, and reviews of books about, politics, history, literature and culture, the CRB may be for you. »

Kamala Harris: “Simply American,” but so much more

Featured image “For Harris, identity is simply ‘American.'” That’s the title (print edition) of a gushing article about Kamala Harris in today’s Washington Post. The Post’s Kevin Sullivan then rambles on for paragraphs discussing Harris’ multi-racial, multi-ethnic background. “Simply American” or not, Harris isn’t above discussing it, either. When she decided to run for president, she wrote a book about her heritage. Here’s what I’d like to know. When Harris applied to »

Drill, Barry, Drill!

Featured image Watching Barack Obama try to take credit for the achievements of others has a certain twisted entertainment value. This time it is the fracking revolution that has made America the world’s number one producer of oil and gas. Almost unbelievably–it would be unbelievable, if we were talking about anyone but Obama–Barack is now attempting to take credit for it! You can’t make this stuff up. Mark Mathis of Clear Energy »

When Beto met Barry [UPDATED]

Featured image The Washington Post reports that Beto O’Rourke, who is weighing whether to mount a 2020 presidential bid, met recently with ­Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. The meeting reportedly took place on November 16. According to the Post, some former Obama aides have encouraged O’Rourke to run for president. They see him as capable of the kind of campaign that caught fire in the 2008 presidential election. Some Republicans are, or »

How can we miss him when he won’t go away?

Featured image John wrote about Barack Obama’s comments at the Obama Foundation conference in Chicago on Monday in “Barack melts down.” I added the video below to John’s post, but I want to take the liberty of bringing it to your attention here. In the video we can observe the hauteur and condescension that we came to loathe about Obama. He combines unearned technocratic arrogance with the will to power. He thinks »

Barack Melts Down

Featured image Barack Obama is in the news again. On Monday evening, he gave a talk in Chicago at the Obama Foundation Summit, whatever that is. I haven’t tried to track down a video, but NBC News reports on the event: Obama, speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday night, said the answers already exist to solve many of the problems facing both the U.S. and the world, but that the »

Obama’s Cretan paradox

Featured image The semi-mythical Cretan philosopher Epimenides famously propounded the paradoxical assertion that all Cretans are liars. Campaigning for Barack Obama in 2012, the cretin former president Bill Clinton propounded his own version of the paradox in his capacity as Barack Obama’s foremost campaign surrogate. Clinton regaled a Philadelphia crowd with his critique of the Romney campaign. Clinton asked: “You’re laughing, but who wants a president who will knowingly, repeatedly tell you »

What Trump and Obama have in common

Featured image Donald Trump and Barack Obama don’t have a great deal in common, but they share this trait: both love to talk about themselves when campaigning for others (and not just then). Obama was in Nevada on Monday, campaigning for Democratic candidates including Rep. Jacky Rosen who is trying to unseat Sen. Dean Heller in a race Democrats probably need to win if they are to gain control of the Senate. »

What happened in Vegas

Featured image The Las Vegas Review-Journal was impressed by the crowd President Obama drew to Cox Pavilion at UNLV as he stumped for Democratic senatorial candidate Jacky Rosen yesterday, putting it at 2,000. On Twitter, Rosie Memos was not so impressed. Drawing on photos from around the room, RM explains the sound of silence. Below is one of the pieces of evidence compiled by RM, who also cruelly contrasts Obama’s Las Vegas »

An Obama postscript

Featured image In a book to be published this week, Jeanne Marie Laskas tells the story of the ten thousand letters a day Americans wrote to President Obama. “Every evening for eight years,” the publisher recalls, “at his request, President Obama was given ten handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens—the unfiltered voice of a nation—from his Office of Presidential Correspondence.” And Laskas reports that President Obama responded in his fashion. The »

Return of the Hypocrite

Featured image After staying mostly quiet for the last year and a half, Barack Obama has emerged to campaign for the Democrats in the midterm elections. The king of hypocrisy wasted no time denouncing President Trump for being divisive and failing to respect the Constitution. He also tried to claim credit for the economy’s taking off as soon as his policies were reversed. Did I mention chutzpah? A number of observers have »

McCain’s funeral turns into resistance meeting

Featured image Susan Glasser of the New Yorker calls John McCain’s funeral “the biggest resistance meeting yet.” I think Glasser is right, but is this a good thing? Glasser certainly thinks so. She seems ecstatic about it. McCain probably would have thought so too. He was a world class grudge holder. McCain was also capable of forgiveness, but that capacity ran in only one direction — left. It’s rich, though, that Meghan »

Obama not going away

Featured image Our relative freedom from the sound of Obama’s voice should not mislead us into thinking he has retreated into postpresidential respectability. We know that’s not his way. In the New York Post column “The myth of Obama’s disappearance,” Paul Sperry documents in excruciating detail that he is still out there seeking fundamental transformation. He’s not going anywhere. He hasn’t changed his stripes. He means to put us back on the »