Breakfast Scramble

Question of the Day, from the Sharp Tack, Clarice Feldman, American Thinker:

We shall see if Jew-hatred is acceptable behavior in the eyes of Hearst and the WH press corps, and Thomas is still allowed her place of honor tomorrow.

Even Howard Cosell or Jimmy  Synder never publicly suggested that blacks should go back to Africa.

If at first you don’t succeed, tie, tie, tie, tie again, Michelle.

Bloggers assail Dean of White House Press Corp. The long line of bloggers, here, here and here,  willing to figuratively kick Helen Thomas is disgraceful Ms Thomas, by virtue of her seniority, is the Dean, and indeed the face, of the White House Press Corp.   Tje Press Corp itself can be no more respected than their esteemed leader.

Michael Steele: So much for change you can believe in, video:

Hat tip: Lynn Sweet. Chicago Sun-Times.

Even Old Charlie Rangel losing faith in Dumbo, by Kathleen Lucadamo. Mew York Daily News:

As for Obama’s sinking approval ratings, Rangel said, “We had perhaps higher expectations than we should have.”

Who we Paleface?

For the first time in recent memory I can quote something coming off Dean Esmay’s site:

After an explosion, deaths, and months of oil spewing into the Golf, 12% more people want the health care reform law repealed than are opposed to new offshore drilling.

The implication seems fairly clear; the American voter sees Obamacare as the bigger disaster.  Correctly, I think.

Several notes.

• Well, first of all, we have had some site issues this morning, apparently relate to an issue with a plugin update. For some reason, the webserver cache isn’t responding as it should.  I’ve disabled it to allow business as usual to go on here at BitsBlog. I’m investigating it …. (As are the IX Webhosting folks) and will let you know.

• The new job continues apace.  Here’s a look at the truck I’ve been driving. This pic was taken while waiting for a loading to be completed at Fairport, NY, just east of Rochester. It’s looking better today than this pic shows… cleanups are always an ongoing process.
  I’m working twelve to fourteen hours a day, generally speaking.  Six to eight of that being actual drive time.  The rest of it, handling logistics, waiting for loading and unloading, and so on.  My realm appears to be limited to New York State so far, Albany to Buffalo, with an occasional run to the southern tier .  By the time I get home from that, though I’m totally whipped, and all I want to do is sleep.  That’s why I’ve not been nearly as active online the last couple months.  I must say that the company has been treating me very well for all that.  I’ve been very pleased… more so than I figured on, on the whole.  The truck they’ve assigned me  (as you can see) is an older one but very comfortable once I cleaned it up and did some work in it and on it, and they’ve been very tolerant of my making the thing my own, if you will.  I’ve been very comfortable with driving it these last few weeks. I consider myself lucky for that and because I’ve managed to get a job it looks like I’ll be able to keep… and in this economy, that’s a real premium. It justifies my choice to switch careers at this late stage.
• That said, I’ve decided to try to continue the Nightly Ramble in a somewhat shorter and quicker format. Since I have so little time anymore with this new job I’m working, perhaps adding my sites a little lower in terms of daily content will allow me to continue coming up with daily commentary.

Welcome to the better late than never scrambled Scramble.

It is not the style stupid, Carol E. Lee, Politico:

People who have worked closely with Obama say he doesn’t think like a bureaucrat, is far more interested in changing the way Washington works than in understanding its machinations and isn’t excited by the kind of gears-of-government reforms that interested a previous generation of Democrats, particularly Al Gore.

The Gulf crisis has shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of Obama’s unique management style, which relies on a combination of his own intellect, a small circle of trusted advisers and a larger group of outside experts

It is not the style stupid, and stupid is not a style  It it not Obama’s management style, or lack thereof.  It rather that Dumbo is incompetent, at anything besides reading a teleprompter.

Is the Obama administration spinning out of control? From Michael Goedwin, New York Post:

His message is wrong. He’s not showing enough anger. He’s lost control of the narrative. He’s a vic tim of bad luck and big oil.

It’s excuse time in the fudge factory. President Obama is getting lots of cover and advice from his left-leaning media friends. Their ideas run the gamut from public relations to, well, public relations.

Beyond the irony of journalists urging more spin from a politician, the really remarkable fact is that none dare consider the possibility that Obama is simply not up to the job. It is a scary thought, but evidence of consistent failure is overwhelming.

Photo ops won’t fix the spill Mr. President, Jack Kelly, RCP:

“I felt this thrill going up my leg,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews famously said after hearing Barack Obama speak during the 2008 campaign.

But after the president’s news conference May 27, the thrill was gone.

“He has not acted like (the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico) is more important than something else like a fundraiser in California or an interview about basketball with Marv Albert,” Mr. Matthews said.  “He doesn’t seem to be taking ownership.”

Leaders are not paralyzed by their fears.   All sane people have their fears.  Only the weak, like Obama, are  paralyzed by them.

Libtards do for the money, Chris Bowers, Open Left:

Only five years ago, the progressive political blogosphere was still predominately a gathering place for amateur (that is, unpaid or barely paid) journalists and activists unattached to existing media companies and advocacy organizations.  Those days are almost completely over.   Now, the progressive blogosphere is almost entirely professionalized, and inextricably linked to existing media companies and advocacy organizations.

Right blogs just do it, Jammie Wearing Fool:

They’ll soon wither and die with the rest of the far left media.

We adults with real lives and real jobs who do this as a hobby will soldier on. The right occupies nearly half the spots in these rankings, most of us aren’t in it for a payday, and we’re clobbering websites and blogs from major establishment media.

Obama to put the whore in journwhoreism,  Adam J. White, Weekly Standard:

In fact, that very point is a central component of the DISCLOSE Act, proposed by Senator Schumer and others (and endorsed by President Obama) in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  The DISCLOSE Act would prohibit certain recipients of federal funds from exercising their First Amendment rights.  As Senator Schumer’s summary of the legislation puts it, “Corporations that received bailout funding from the federal government should not be permitted to use taxpayer money to influence elections.”

Those who take Obama’s money will write what Obama tells them to write.  Hugo Chavez would be proud.

One ugly hag, video:

Hat tip:  Shawn Marlow Wizbang.

Dumbo just isn’t all into the spill, RCP:

A review of the president’s schedule since the rig sank finds that while the oil spill has been a regular part of the agenda, other priorities — and some extended periods of R&R — competed for time. April 22, the day the rig sank and two days after the first explosion, is indicative of this pattern. That morning, Obama traveled to New York City to deliver remarks on Wall Street reform. En route, press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked whether Obama had spoken with officials in the region about the rig explosion, responding, “I don’t believe so.” After returning to the White House, Obama held a reception to honor Earth Day and met with the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Dumbo’s priorities, Mary Katherine Ham, Weekly Standard:

So, the party out of power was somewhere between two and four times more important than the economy-threatening, ecosystem-strangling, gigantic oil spill, which is Obama’s No. 1 priority. (There’s a joke in there somewhere for a liberal blogger about understanding the president’s inability to differentiate between two overpowering, slimy forces of greed. Bum-dump-ching! Fun with partisan stereotypes.)

Anybody left who hasn’t been offered a payoff job by the Obama White House, please put out your hand Los Angeles Times.

Will somebody offer Gloria Borger a clue, from CNN:

All of which leads to President Obama. He was elected because he is cool, calm and analytical. That’s what we wanted to see after George W. Bush, so we made him president. But now the disaster in the Gulf has made many of us want to see someone else — with plenty of anger, emotion and bravado. We want him to yell at BP. We want him to loudly tell us he’s whipping the cleanup effort into shape.

We can’t tell BP ourselves, so we want him to do it for us.

The President we elected and the President we got was a thug from Chicago.   Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama neither cool, calm nor analytical.    Rather then being calm,  Obama is troubled by his temper.    Rather than stopping the oil leak in the Gulf, the Obama administration gloats about holding a boot to BP’s throat.   Rather than being analytical, Obama still speaks of Obama Care bending the cost curve down, when in fact it bending the curve up.   Rather thnn admitting that the theory anthropogenic global warming based on fraud,  Obama still wants to impose  Cap and Tax.

Boxing Barbara,  video:

Everybody talks about the weather.

Alternative titles, with and without apologies.

Balls, stolen Right Scoop.

Jewish Majority. no apology Jerry Falwell

The Right Stuff, apology Tom Wolfe

Courage, no apology Dan Rather

Yoinked with Pride, apology, Laura W.  Ace of Spades.

Yid with Balls, apology Yid with Lid.

Home of the Brave, Gateway Pundit.

Without further ado the viral video of the day:

Hat tip:   Right Scoop

Won is the loneliest number, By Mike Wereschagin, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Congressmen Jason Altmire and Tim Murphy have previous engagements.  Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and Rep. Mike Doyle are out of town on anniversary trips with their wives. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato will be campaigning in Philadelphia.

When President Obama and Sen. Arlen Specter land at Pittsburgh International Airport today, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will receive them by himself.

The rest of the region’s top elected officials declined White House invitations to attend Obama’s speech at Carnegie Mellon University this afternoon, their offices said.

Not to worry Barry, you always have BFD  Biden.

Mere words, Dim Won in Pennsylvania, from the Los Angeles Slmes:

A feisty President Obama, whose popularity has been slipping in the polls, travels to Pennsylvania on Wednesday, where he will chastise Republicans and the oil company BP as he defends his administration’s  efforts to build “a new foundation” for the country as it comes out of recession.

“America does not stand still. We move forward,” Obama will say, according to excerpts from his speech, which were distributed by the White House. “We must build a new, stronger foundation for growth and prosperity – and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the last 16 months.”

Led, follow or get out of the way.

Mayor Daley versus freedom, Jeromy Lott, RCP:

Talk about your inconvenient truth. Five days after Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had held a press conference touting the benefits of the city’s handgun ban by brandishing a rifle with a bayonet and — I swear I am not making this up — cracking a joke about shoving it up a reporter’s bum, an 80-year-old man on the West Side of Chicago traded gunfire with a burglar, killing the intruder

Free citizens have the right to carry weapons wherever they may travel, without making a donation to Da Mayor’s campaign slush fund.

He is creepy and kooky, Joe McGiness, Today interview, video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It’s not a good narrative arc: The man who walked on water is now ensnared by a crisis under water.

Maureen Dowd, a/k/a MoDo, New York Slimes

Neither George W. Bush, nor Barack  “Dumbo”  Ohana could ever walk on water, nor part the Red Sea.   However,  conservatives voted for Bush knowing who he was,  a C student.   In stark contrast, Dim Won has never released his college transcripts.   Bush ran on what he was and thqt is what we got.   Whereas, Obama campaigned on whiat he never was, competent.    Now the MSM is shocked to find we have a moron for President.

Miranda redux, Associated Press:

In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority expanded its limits on the famous Miranda rights for criminal suspects on Tuesday — over the dissent of new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the ruling turned Americans’ rights of protection from police abuse “upside down.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said a suspect who goes ahead and talks to police after being informed he doesn’t have to has waived his right to remain silent

Classic Miranda warning, you can almost hear Joe Friday’s voice, from About:

Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.

The Court: “The warning of the right to remain silent must be accompanied by the explanation that anything said can and will be used against the individual in court.”

Short and free legal advice, when Detective Friday warns you that anything you say can be used against you, he means it,  and right now the Supreme Court is backing him up.

Hat tip:  Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.

Libtards for tyranny, by James Rucker, Root:

Either Paul, Stossel and adherents to their philosophy are naive or they’re being disingenuous. There is nothing in our history to suggest that racist businesses would close simply by dint of negative public opinion. Indeed, we have every reason to believe that in some parts of the country they would thrive–people would patronize them because they discriminate, not in spite of it. Further, it’s not clear where Stossel or Paul would draw the line on private discrimination. According to their logic, businesses should be able to refuse to hire people if they are black or brown. Homeowners could decide not to sell their home to someone of a different race. Do we honestly believe that market forces would right those injustices?

Under what theory of  government would you consider free citizens making free choices to be injustice?    I can think of several, but none that would call Jeffersonian.   Look at it like this, if you don’t like the choices that I make, then don’t make them.  Otherwise butt out.

Ambush at Sea, by Ralph Peters, New York Post:

Yesterday’s “aid convoy” incident off the coast of Gaza wasn’t about bringing humanitarian supplies to the terrorist-ruled territory. It wasn’t even about Israel.

It was about Turkey’s determination to position itself as the leading Muslim state in the Middle East.

[…]

The lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, just happened to have an al-Jazeera TV crew on board to film Israel’s response. Ironically, the early videos would’ve been counterproductive, had world leaders and journalists not been programmed to blame everything on Israel.

‘Politics as usual”,  by Kristen Powers, New York Post:

Obama & Co. wanted to clear the primary field for Sen. Arlen Specter, who embodies everything Americans hate about politicians. A party-switching career pol, “Spineless Specter” holds no discernible principles, save his u

Sorry, but this isn’t “change you can believe in.”

Why JWM does not blog as Little Miss Blushing Scarlet O’Hara, by Joy McCann, Little Miss Attica:

Robert Leslie Hymers, III, Sort-Of “Reports” Me to the FBI

For your fisking/snarking pleasure. First, the attorney’s cover note:

Shorter, LMA:  Bring it on!

LMA backgrounder by RSM, Robert Stacy McCain,  Other McCain:

No, the Obama administration isn’t after our blog friend.

When she was a young teenager back in the 1970s, Little Miss Attila spent a few years in a church that she now describes as a cult. That has not endeared her to those who remain within the flock of minister R.L. Hymers Jr., nor has it endeared her to the son of aforesaid minister, who has reported her to the FBI, accusing her of using “religious ‘hate speech’ to harass and stalk my father.”

So noted, Erik Schelzig, Associated Press:

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage.

According to an e-mailed statement obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, the Gores said it was “a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration.”

Hat tip:  Michael Laprarie, Wizbang.   For the record, I don’t believe Al Gore invented the Internet either.

So we have here, ladies and gentlemen, Obama’s Bay of Rigs.  Obama’s Bay of Rigs has been so disastrous he’s now seen as the disappointer-in-chief by Maureen Dowd and Chris Matthews, who — get this! Last week Chris Matthews played a clip of me on this program impersonating Bill Clinton, and when I suggested, “What better guy to go out and get to handle this Sestak thing than somebody who’s willing to commit perjury?”  Matthews said, “You know, now and then Limbaugh gets it right.  That’s pretty clever,” and he played my impersonation. So they know. They know.  So you have the Bay of Rigs for the disappointer-in-chief. Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, Obama has not only let them down, he has let down his expire party as well as millions of others who were foolish to vote for him.  But to be fair, those who fell for Obama’s favorite prop — hope — should only be disappointed in themselves because they fell for a totally unaccomplished leftist who delivered platitudes and deceit with great passion.  Barack Obama had never run anything in his life. He was the most inexperienced, most liberal Senator we’ve ever seen.  We still don’t know what classes he took in college. We don’t know what his grades were. The man didn’t know how many states we have! He thought that were 57.

Rush Limbaugh.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• RESPONSIBILITY AND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOVERNMENT REMOVES IT: So much for the utopia that then candidate Obama promised us, once he was elected.  According to the Marathon Pundit 21 people were shot in separate incidents in Chicago on the 29th of this month.  Now, it is almost knee jerkish to suggest that what’s going to come out of this is more calls for gun legislation.  ( Hillary Clinton the other day, for example.  ) But.. should we, as the Obama administration and liberals everywhere appear to do always and forever, separate the responsibility of the people holding said weapons?  I drive a tractor trailer for a living.  Often , this truck that I drive is loaded with enough weight to bring the very close to my weight total weight limit of 80,000lbs… Certainly, this is enough to cause serious damage to anything I decide to drive into.  Yet, I don’t.  There are millions of gun owners out there, who similarly do not use the tools that they carry to create the kind of mayhem that we saw in Chicago.  So, comes the question, why?  I mean, let’s ignore for the moment that study after study reveals that legal gun ownership lowers crime rates.  The murder rate in the big cities has gone sky high comparatively within the last year.  If we are to attribute victim status to those pulling the triggers, as the Dim Won is wont to do, does the recent upsurge in crime suggest that with Obama in office they’re more victims now with liberals in charge, than they were a couple of years ago?
• SUBS IN THE GULF: According to a link posted by Andrew Ian Dodge, Israeli submarines are headed out into the gulf. Another aspect of Obama failed foreign policy.   These failures are coming hard and fast, people, and they’re getting to the point where they can’t be ignored.
• JUST REMEMBER, YOU’RE PAYING FOR THIS:Moonbattery:
  

  PBS, the primary bastion of coercively financed liberal elitism, has officially jumped the shark.

  Let’s view the quote again, from PBS host Tavis Smiley:

  Christians do that every single day. In this country. … There are so many more examples of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country where you live and work.

  By their words, you shall know them. The socialist left in this country has long held Christianity to be the same problem that Marx held it to be.  PBS has once again revealed itself as part of that mindless set.

• OBAMA’S KATRINA: When even Frank Rich of the New York Times starts questioning the credibility of president Obama starts raising the possibility that we’ve been right all along about the oil spill in the gulf being the Obama’s Katrina, you know that the credibility issues surrounding this White House are not going to go away until Obama himself does.  I have to tell you, though, that there is a nagging doubt in the back of my mind, that this is an attempt on the part of this far and leftist, anti-oil, anti-business, and anti-free-market White House to put the worst possible spin on oil drilling off shore.  The article suggests, correctly, that Obama and his incompetence are hurting the big government agenda.  For the short term, that’s probably true.  But as we saw many times over the last century, socialists… like Rich himself, (now having admitted it)  have a tendency to take the long view these things. If the left, Obamites, particularly, wanted to create an anti drilling sentiment in this country, they could hardly have orchestrated it better.  And what’s this I hear about the connections between BP and Rahm Emanuel ?
• SESTAK, BRIBES, AND JAIL The Sestak story… it is yet another one of those stories that calls into serious question the credibility and the possible/probable  criminality of the Obama White House.  Here’s a great time line you need to look at about this story.  You can of course understand why the democrats are playing this one very carefully and low key.   If Sestak is lying, the Democrats possibly lose Pennsylvania.  If, on the other hand, he’s telling the truth, we’re (and that seems to me more likely) going to see people perp-walked out of the White House. In that event, not only do they lose Pennsylvania, but they also end up with an unrecoverable situation in the next election nationally.  I notice stories on the wires how Bubba actually had lunch with Obama in the White House last week.  Clearly, a strategy session ensued.  In other words, they had to get their stories on the same line.   Why Clinton? Why would they ask someone whose ass needed to be kissed bigtime for any support at all? (Clinton’s words, following the last election, and the defeat of Hillary in the primary) You tell me… what better person could they possibly ask, to perform a clearly  illegal act in pursuit of the furtherance of leftist causes?  The mumbling currently coming from the Obama White House, is that “this has how it’s always been done”.  Well, look, even if so, wasn’t Obama pledging to change that, back when he was running for the office?  Should we not now chastise and condemn him for breaking his promise, yet again?  I want you to consider something over the next day or so.  This story surrounding this bribe coming from the White House has been bouncing around in the back rooms and in the tickle files since February.  With all that time involved, don’t you think that the White House should have been able to come up with something better than this, if it were at all possible to make this situation looked more aboveboard that it does right now? If all of this was nothing more than businesses usual, then why didn’t we see Clinton’s big nose stuck into the camera explaining all of this ?  I smel something far stinkier than what we’re being told of here.  I suggest to you that this situation is far dirtier than anyone outside the White House believes.
• THE ISRAEL FLOTILLA STORY: I made mention the other day about how all Israeli submarines were making their way into the gulf .  I failed to make mention of the number of surface ships that are already out there.  John Hawkins who should be under regular reading list anyway, has come up with a comparison of the reaction of both political sides in this country to the flotilla story.  It’s a must read.
• THE WAGES OF EXCESSIVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Donald Douglass merely scratches the surface here but it’s as good an expose’ on the matter as I’ve ever seen.

As to that peace flotilla, William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection:

The left-wing blogosphere is full of useful idiots, who pretend that the flotilla which just was stopped by Israel was a humanitarian mission.

[…]

If getting humanitarian supplies to Gaza really was the goal, this flotilla was not necessary. The supplies would have been off-loaded in Eqypt or Israel and then shipped in by land after being checked for hidden weapons

Gender feminist hisy fit, Jessica Valenti, in the Washington Post, attempts to define feminism:

But, of course, Palin isn’t a feminist — not in the slightest. What she calls “the emerging conservative feminist identity” isn’t the product of a political movement or a fight for social justice.

It isn’t a structural analysis of patriarchal norms, power dynamics or systemic inequities. It’s an empty rallying call to women who are disdainful of or apathetic to women’s rights, who want to make abortion and emergency contraception illegal, who would cut funding to the Violence Against Women Act and who fight same-sex marriage rights. As Kate Harding wrote on Jezebel.com: “What comes next? ‘Phyllis Schlafly feminism?’ ‘Patriarchal feminism?’ ‘He-Man Woman Hater Feminism?’ “

Valenti’s bottom line, unless  you favor the killing of unborn human beings, you too selfish to call yourself a feminist.

Carrie Lucas, National Review, in turn defines Valenti:

Yet the only policies that she references are abortion and gay marriage. Are positions on abortion and gay marriage the litmus test for the feminist movement?

If the feminist movement is really trying to champion women, then they need to realize that women care about lot more than sex and reproduction issues.

How to stop the BP leak and drive a Greenpeace wacko plum loco, from Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, video:

I say, Barack Obama is no paranoid anti nuclear that we would never dare attempt this.  What say you?

Single issue Ramble today. I want to speak briefly about Memorial day which is today.

It’s always been a special day for me, because honoring our vets has always held special meaning for me; it’s a lesson my parents instilled very well, indeed. It was brought home to me, as I was recently looking at pictures from a trip we made through the Gettysburg PA area some years ago.

It’s a particularly meaningful thing, when you’re standing on that field…. Something that goes well beyond the cold facts and figures about who died from what company, how old they were, or even where they were from. It’s more a feeling you get…. You can sense it… not unlike being at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, or visiting Arlington National Cemetery. I’m told Omaha Beach, and Pearl Harbor and many other sites are the same way. I’ve been at the funerals of firemen and policemen who died in their line of duty, and that was also remarkably similar.

In each case, we’re dealing with places and concepts of death. But death alone doesn’t do it; doesn’t create that solemn atmosphere that is so unique to the above places. After all; there are lots of mass casualty accidents have happened over the centuries and their sites are well marked, and revered, or at least held apart, and yet, their impact doesn’t approach that of an Iwo Jima or a Pearl.

Even under the shelter of the relative safety of the time that has passed since the events, as you stand in each place, you can still feel it; Lives were lost there that were willingly (And in the case of the civilian deaths at the towers, unwillingly) sacrificed toward a higher ideal.

Our feelings and conclusions can be far different from what those lost experienced. Yet, their lives and their sacrifices still count for something. And the thing is, it doesn’t take much for us to out ourselves in their mindset.

Think of it this way; Every single man who died at Gettysburg, at Normandy, at Pearl and all the rest, has meaning for us because each of them, had their own lives, just as we have our own lives.

These people loved, they laughed, they cried. They had a favorite food, a favorite color, a particular bit of music, or of poetry stirred their souls, like none other, just like we, ourselves. Every bit as much as you and I love our lives, they loved theirs. Their lives were as precious to them, as yours is to you. Their loss was as keenly felt by their loved ones as yours would yours. And yet, they gave their lives up, for something bigger.

I have a neighbor, whose father just recently needed a liver transplant. This neighbor willingly gave up part of his liver to be transplanted into his father. A noble action, certainly, commendable, and impressive. But with all respect to my neighbor, the choice to do that is comparatively easy to make. He knows and loves his father, and the sacrifice is fairly light by comparison.

How much more noble is a sacrifice of one’s life for people that one will never meet? Well, the people we honor today, those in uniform particularly, but some who were not, gave of themselves for the benefit of people they would never know…. you and I, and countless others from many nations. If not for their sacrifices, you’d not be reading this BIT, because I’d not have written it…. we’d be living in a very different world, possibly, one not nearly as good to us as it has been.

Look upon those actions, those sacrifices, and know what you’re seeing is strength, courage, and nobility in measures that should not… can not, be ignored. It must be honored by us all; it was made, after all for our benefit.

Think about that as we deal with the solemn proceedings for their day.

Dumbo at rock bottom, from Toby Harden, Telegraph(UK):

When any political leader feels they have to declare that they are “fully engaged” in an issue, it is clear that they are in trouble. Talking about it undermines the very point you are trying to make – not to mention that pesky Oil Spill Cam showing that, 38 days into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, not a whole lot had been achieved.

[,,]

Even judging Obama by his words, he has fallen woefully short over what has now eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez wreck as biggest oil spill catastrophe in American history. He may have described it as an “unprecedented disaster” in last Thursday’s press conference but a week into the crisis he was blithely stating that “this incident is of national significance” and rest assured he was receiving “frequent briefings” about it.

Leaping Lizzy smacks Dumbo , Elizabeth Cheney on Barack Obama’s BP oil leak response, or lack thereof same, from Jiim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, transcript:

“You know you’ve got a president who believes that saying something makes it so. You showed it in the last segment when he said he was going to have the most transparent administration in history. But, that doesn’t mean you’re actually going to be open and transparent. It’s not the same thing as we’ve seen with him. On the war, he says he knows were at war but he doesn’t actually understand he has to lead us in the fight… And, going down to Louisiana he says, “Gosh, I’m heart-broken. I’m angry. I’m frustrated.” And then going on vacation to Chicago really doesn’t send a message that this is a man who’s leading… A gift for reading the TelePrompter is not the same as leadership.”

Video:

One wonders just what MoDo is smoking, Maureen Dowd in the New York Slimes:

Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed

MoDo,  Dumbo dose not exactly inspire confidence.   The more Obama talked about Obamacare, the more unpopujar it got.   Obama continues to talk about Obamacare and it continues to get even more unpopular.  Likewise,  the more Obama trashes the Arizona immigration law, the more popular the law gets..

Reax from Professor Althouse:

Was it his ability?  Or were we the ones that had the ability — the ability to see him as able when he was up there on the campaign platform mouthing abstractions? He’s still up there — on what Maureen Dowd calls “a balcony” — but now all the concrete problems of the world are his responsibility. He hasn’t changed. He hasn’t stopped doing something he was able to do before. But we have reached the end of our capacity to idealize him.

Birds of a feather, from Nice Deb:

There is no place like home.