Barack Obama
December 10, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Last month, I noted with dismay that, in a survey, a majority of Republicans deemed Donald Trump a better president than Abraham Lincoln. It’s only fair for me to note, with even more dismay, that most Democrats who participated in a new survey deemed Barack Obama a better president than George Washington. The survey comparing Obama and Washington is from Monmouth University. It found that among Democratic voters, the “Father
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October 21, 2019 — Scott Johnson
What really happened when the president met behind closed doors with congressional leaders in the White House last week and Nancy Pelosi wagged her finger at President Trump? In his remarks to the press immediately following the meeting, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did not go into detail. McCarthy subsequently gave an account that contrasted with the one touted by the Democrats and faithfully disseminated by their media adjunct. In
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September 5, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis has a book coming out in which he is harshly critical of President Obama. Among other things, he recalls his dissent from Obama’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq prematurely, which had nearly-disastrous consequences. But this less well-known story about Iran is also noteworthy: Mattis says Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an “act of war” on American soil. Mattis was CENTCOM
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August 22, 2019 — John Hinderaker
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
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August 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
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
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July 29, 2019 — John Hinderaker
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
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June 17, 2019 — John Hinderaker
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,
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May 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
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.
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February 3, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
“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
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December 6, 2018 — John Hinderaker
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
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December 4, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
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
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November 22, 2018 — Scott Johnson
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
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November 21, 2018 — John Hinderaker
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
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October 29, 2018 — Scott Johnson
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
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October 24, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
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.
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October 23, 2018 — Scott Johnson
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
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September 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
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
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