Is Larry Summers leaving?
The answer is “yes,” if this report by Joshua Green at the Atlantic can be credited.
I wondered about something similar last fall, in which I quoted this article by Charles Gasparino, who reported:
I’m told that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers have both complained to senior Wall Street execs that they have almost no say in major policy decisions. Obama economic counselor Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, is barely consulted at all on just about anything ”” not even issues involving the banking system, of which he is among the world’s leading authorities…
As one CEO of a major financial firm told me: “The economic guys say that when they explain the costs of programs, the policy guys simply thank them for their time and then ignore what they say.”
In other words, the economic people feel that they have almost no say in this administration’s policy decisions.
According to Joshua Green, Geithner’s star has risen as Summer’s has remained fallen. Green ascribes Summer’s dissatisfaction to his hurt massive ego and lack of power. And while I don’t doubt that Summers has a very hefty sense of his own self-importance, I think (actually, I hope) it may be more than that that’s eating him.
Perhaps—just perhaps—he thinks the Obama administration is doing the wrong thing economically? I realize that by saying this I am probably giving Summers far more credit than he deserves. But I retain a naive hope that someone in the Obama administration actually retains some sort of intellectual and moral integrity about what’s been happening, and will ultimately act on it by refusing to be part of it any more and spilling the beans.
I know, I know. That’s why I referred to myself as “naive.” Most of these people long ago sold out whatever integrity they may have ever possessed. But, like Diogenes, I keep searching—in the most unlikely places.
One place I will never search again, however, is anywhere near Hillary Clinton. There has been much speculation on if and when Hillary will leave the administration. I don’t think it matters, and I don’t much care—unless she goes out soon, and with a mammoth tell-all speech or book that will expose and shame the Obama administration for all time.
Otherwise, my opinion of her is fixed: she’s been completely co-opted and corrupted, and has no credibility left with the more centrist Democrats and moderates who had previously supported her. Her hypocrisy is profound—and although that probably always was true, it never before has been so crystal clear.
Summers isn’t staying, according to Kudlow and The Daily Caller. And he sounds like a Yes man to this mammoth spending and imminent taxation.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/07/dc-on-tv-jon-ward-on-the-kudlow-report-speculating-a-larry-summers-resignation/
Sorry I mean Summers IS staying…
IMHO, a Van Jones type has more influence on economic policy formulation in the ∅bama White House than Summers. It becomes policy if it agrees with the Hyde Park worldview of ∅bama’s inner circle. (Recall Valerie Jarrett’s comment that she & friends had been keeping an eye on Van.)
Hillary slept her way to the top. That’s what she does one way or another.
Hillary is truly beyond rehabilitation because there was nothing there to begin with. Just ask her NY constituents.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone, America is now truly in the hands of left-wing traitors. It is a bottom up affair, in which their grass roots support need to feel a healthy dose of honest contempt which they can’t slither away from; whoever, where ever. Nothing else is going to turn things around until the Democrat base is forced into intellectual honesty, especially the Obamatoad MSM. It’s definitely time for kiss and tell, which should be no problem for Dems like Hillary.
I think the best chance for a tell all might come from Defense Dept. underlings. They would probably be too far outside the loop a bit for internal WH stuff, but I’d love to hear what they have to say about Obama and the war on terror.
Hillary slept her way to the top.
I did not need that image in my mind.
Hillary is truly beyond rehabilitation because there was nothing there to begin with.
Didn’t stop Barry.
I wouldn’t write her off yet, much as I’d like to. By 2012 the Dems will probably be desperate for a candidate, any candidate, whose initials are not BHO. If Hillary picks a fight with Obama in the next year or so, and resigns “on a matter of principle” (yeah, yeah, I know) she can position herself as the anti-Obama in the general election. With the MSM, women, and Dems generally backing her, she’ll have a pretty good shot. Yet another historic first, and all that.
But she’s got to bail soon. Shortly after the midterm elections would be a good bet, when the Dems start their internecine food fight over who’s to blame for the thumping.
And what, one supposes, did Summers and Geithner think would be the state of things when they accepted the call to ascend to the lofty heights of Mount Obama? Perhaps they felt that Obama, who had no executive experience, horribly fumbled the only management position he ever held–that of handing out money in Chicago under the Annenberg Education Challenge* to assist underserved children; even they concluded that he blew tens of millions and did nothing to help Chicago children–and had no knowledge of history or economics, was bringing in experts to supplement his lack of knowledge and that he would actually listen to and take their advice? After all, isn’t that what any rational POTUS would do? Isn’t that what most of them have done?
If so, I nominate Summers and Geithner for the 2010 Louis Renault Award. No doubt they were shocked, shocked! to learn that Obama wasn’t interested in rational monetary policy and that he was determined to impose the one economic system that has been proven, time and time again, over a century, to be a complete, horrific and debilitating failure: Socialism/Marxism.
After all, the alternative is that they knew exactly what Obama was and would do and accepted their jobs anyway. Neither proposition speaks well for their intellectual capacity and integrity. I’ll leave it to the gentle reader to decide which alternative would reflect most poorly on these frustrated gentlemen.
What’s the old saw? A conservative is a liberal who has been robbed at gunpoint? Could it be possible that superior beings such as Summers and Geithner could learn such common, lower class lessons? Could they now, at long last, understand that the inexorable rules of life and economics apply to them too? Could they come to the realization that Obama is a narcissistic, marxist con man determined to destroy America at all costs? And having come to those realizations, could they suddenly develop the moral integrity necessary to blow one of the most significant and revealing whistles in American history? One of Steve Martin’s most famous lines says it best: “Naaaaah!”
*Obama’s partner in this brave, community organizing venture was Bill Ayers. You know, unrepentant terrorist, the guy who just happened do live in Obama’s neighborhood, a man Obama barely knows?
It’s not just Hillary, but a whole lot of people who’ve gambled their reputations by being part of this administration. I’ve always thought Hillary was even more of a narcissist than Bill though, but admittedly its a very close call.
I’ve always thought Hillary was even more of a narcissist than Bill though, but admittedly its a very close call.
That’s an imponderable, kind of like trying to figure who’s dumber, Pelosi or Boxer. One has to quantum and relativistic effects into account to try to find a distinction.
Er…make that “One has to take…”
Joshua Green strikes me as slimey as the folks he covers, and I wouldn’t take the word of either of them at face value, ever.
The problem for highly-placed potential whistleblowers is the wrath of Obama et al. They willl be merciless, unlike GWB. A remnant of morality distinguishes Repubs from Dems, to the Repubs’ disadvantage.
Hillary is done as a pres. candidate. She’s in it up to her eyebrows. Is she going to say ‘I just did what I was told?’ She was likely as deluded as the 53%, thinking it would be a ride on Baraq’s shoulders. She’s taking a ride on a tiger, instead. Good thing, too. The harm they’re doing will endure long after they’ve left the stage.
Academia and the MSM will tear up a Summers or anyone like him upon ratting Baraq out. Look at what happened to Larry at Harvard.
“”Hillary is done as a pres. candidate.””
I agree. Kaput. Finished. Adios.
You guys aren’t just saying that to cheer me up?
I’m not so sanguine about Hillary. Two years is a long time, especially for the cognitively challenged who weren’t paying much attention in the first place. If she blows it out with Barry soon, the resulting kerfuffle will swamp everything else. Notice she’s been keeping a very low profile at State; she’s hardly in the news at all. Kinda un-Clintonian, isn’t it?
Unless she/Bill figured Barry would romance the canine, in which case signing on in the Obama Cabinet punches the team player card, and gives her (at least nominally) foreign policy experience. She makes nice (thereby keeping the Dem establishment sweet), keeps a low profile (so she’s not strongly identified with the unfolding fiasco), and then pointedly stomps off in a huff once the Messiah’s funky feet of clay start becoming apparent to all, thereby scuppering him further. Then the Dems draft her in 2012 to avoid calamity, and she positions herself as saving the Party.
Why do I think this? Because it’s what I would have done in the same situation, had I had her aspirations.
She and Bill learned their history well; Ted Kennedy tried to hose Carter, but it didn’t work in part because Kennedy was in the Senate. To really make a point of distancing yourself, you have to get closer first.
And recall that no one looked more cooked than Nixon in 1962, after losing the CA gubernatorial race to Pat Brown. So I wouldn’t count Hillary out yet, although God knows I’d like to.
Hillary’s petulant, defensive respone to the student’s question in Africa is all you really need to know about her.
Hillary Clinton was always far more of an ideologue than Bill. He did influence her by convincing her that running to the middle is how to win, thus her ‘moderate’ stance on the issues. The only hypocrisy is her being revealed as not really a moderate at all. She’s fully on-board the Obama express, only differing in how best to get to the same goal.
Hillary has no chance in 2012. If things are so bad that the party throws Obama under the bus, Hillary will not be able to overcome the public’s low opinion of the party. Just as Humphrey, Ford, and Mondale, all likable men, were not able to overcome their predecessors reputations.
It is my fervent hope that every Democrat is finished as a presidential candidate, at least as one with a hope of winning. I guess one should never count Hillary out, but dear Lord when I watch her talk I can’t get past that expressionless face and the manner that seems exactly as though someone having pressed “play.”
I talked to a friend at work today who got my conspiracy theory juices running. I once again had the thought that there’s some reason Obama and the Democrat congress don’t care that the American people are opposed to what they are doing. It may be that they know they are going to lose, and simply don’t care, will count it worth the cost if they can ram through enough transformative (revolutionary!) legislation before then.
But I continue to be nagged, now and again, by the thought that maybe that they know about, have planned, a way to suspend, negate, or steal the November elections. Ugh. I don’t like it, and I know it can qualify me for the lunatic fringe, but on the other hand I can’t quite get shut of the idea that we should never THINK it can’t happen here.
Neo, I understand your thought, and caution, about giving Summers far more credit than he deserves. Now and then I hope that he learned something valid from his Harvard experience, and it will prove to have been useful. I wouldn’t bet anything I couldn’t afford to lose on it, but on the other hand they savaged him pretty badly up there. One would think he might have found it instructive about the Left he’s been so wedded to for so long, about the fact that it does not hesitate to eat its own in the service of its lying program.
Summers is much, much smarter than Geithner, who is merely an adolescent in a bureaucrat’s suit. Power, however, has stupified both.
Perhaps Summers has recovered his senses in time and does not want to go down with the Titanic. Geithner, however, is stupid enough to do Obama’s bidding to the end, and will go down as the worst Secretary of Treasury of all time (much like Greenspan as the worst Fed Chairman).
The problem for Summers is that he really doesn’t have a home to go back to. Can’t go back to Harvard as a lowly professor after being president there. He had a highly paid sinecure at D.E. Shaw, but kind of ruined his reputation as a market prognosticator after his disasterous interest rate swap bet at Harvard (plus he peddled a bunch of toxic CDOs to Asian countries). So, hedge funds are out too. After government, what?
Another problem is whether Summers still cares about how he’s portrayed by Krugman and his ilk.
Hillary’s narcissism is of a different type than Bill’s, and more dangerous. His revolves around “Little Bill” and his need for gratification. Hers revolves around the lust for power, and her willingness to prostitute herself and any integrity she might have once had (doubtful) to anyone or anything that will give it to her.
Larry Summers is a smart guy, and not someone who, in my view, would like to have his name associated with American economic collapse. Whether he stays or goes boils down to whether he thinks he can salvage his reputation from inside the administration, or if he has to leave to do so. Hard to say “I told you so” if you’re seen as part of the problem.
Leaving while on top is the best time to leave. History will give summers credit for being part of the team that averted disaster, got us out of recession, and reeled in out of control heatcare spending (though that one has yet to happen so its always possible estimates in saving turn out to be wrong).
But right now tarp has proven to be a rollicking success. the banks are saved (which is critical since banking is different from other industries, the whole economy is dependent on credit) and we’ve actually made a profit (especially in our stake in goldman sachs) bravo.
on top of that, all the relevant economic indicators show we’re out of the bush recession. the stock market is still indicating recovery and even unemployment has leveled off, though thats unimportant economically (but not politically) since its a laggard.
so now obama will pivot to taming the deficit, which is no easy task, especially since the republicans and teapartiers have become the party of medicare…an extension i suppose of bush’s completely fiscally irresponsible unfunded medicare pt d, the greatest act of socialism from an American prez since nixon’s price and wage controls.
so, good time for summers to leave.
I have shared betsyb’s fears for some time. A contrived or provoked election-canceling crisis is the Obamites’ painfully obvious solution. It is so obvious that the prospect must be anticipated with grave seriousness.
Manju says : ” so now obama will pivot to taming the deficit”
ROFL
manju says “on top of that, all the relevant economic indicators show we’re out of the bush recession.”
Can someone more eloquent than I and with more time than I have at the moment please explain the whole X number or quarters in decline that meets the definition of a recession and just when we reached that….
If I (in my wilder moments) am right, none of Summers’ calculations (or much of anyone else’s) will matter.
My friend at work today recalled a couple of on-line thread posts he has seen, he didn’t remember where, by a Russian who had talked to Obama during one of Obama’s youthful visits to Russia (does anyone know whether Obama visited Russia as a private citizen, in his early years?) in which Obama had said he wanted to see the world united under a single Communist government. My friend mentioned a recent CFR paper he had read stating that, in the coming chaos, the world-wide middle class would be dissolved. I had a thought that, while these guys make the wealthy the enemy, the middle class is in true life where the money actually is, and if they want to absorb the money they will have to absorb–and destroy–the middle class.
I don’t know how far I’m prepared to go with this, but it does seem plausible that these wizards are mounting an assault on the middle class, at least in this country.
I don’t know. This getting too crazy for me.
Thanks, Tom! I hate feeling like the resident lunatic on the block, here.
But I think we’d be fools to not at least consider the possibility.
Although there is always Artfldgr . . . .
I saw the same story about Summers and Geithner from Paul Gigot of the WSJ. Is it possible that they are trying to influence Obama and save him from some of the mistakes he is making? I wonder the same thing about Sec.Def.Gates. Christina Romer clearly knows better — she wrote the book on what works and what doesn’t in recessions, yet there she is talking about jobs created and jobs saved, and how well the stimulus is working.
Members of the Obama administration who speak in public clearly have a pretty narrow set of guidelines, and they don’t vary from the program. There is just something weird, bizarre about this administration and its workings, or perhaps I should say the administration and its leadership.
Hillary was pretty critical of Obama during the campaign, and pointed out that her experience as First Lady visiting foreign governments trumped his as a 6-10 year-old in Indonesia. (and most of us thought that was pretty funny!) But now she is fully aboard the Obama bus. I don’t recall ever being so aware of the extent to which all speak in their master’s voice. Or is that just because I disagree so much with O’s policies?
Mrs. Bill Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State has eliminated all doubt as to her competence.
There is none.
Oh, and I use the “Mrs. Bill Clinton” advisedly. There is “no there there” except for Bill.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
I don’t understand why Summers or Bernanke would even feign surprise.
The economy is not an issue. It is a tool – the tool second only to the power of regulation – that the Marxist cabal occupying the Executive is using to destroy the Republic.
“Mr. President, I must caution in you in the strongest possible terms that their consequences absolutely attached to this blast of taxation, regulation, and nationalization!”
“Noted. Thanks, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
I’m done being worried for a while. I think I’ll start to pay more attention when The Won stops bothering to talk to the press anymore. It will be past too late for anyone to do anything by then.
But nobody in DC seems to want to name the beast we’ve put in the White House.
Hillary Clinton is an Alinskyite and a Marxist. No way in hell do I want to see her anywhere near the Presidency.
But as an earlier commenter said, at least we can be sure that she is an American. By now it’s pretty obvious that Obama isn’t.
betsybounds:
I haven’t heard of that Russian conversation you described, but it should be crystal clear by now that Obama intends to wipe out and impoverish the American middle class. That’s what Communists do everywhere they seize power.
We really do need a Pinochet, and I’m not at all shy about saying that. We desperately need a patriotic general who takes the Constitution seriously to stage a coup and put all of the Communists up against the wall. I am dead serious.
betsybounds: to answer your question, I’ve never seen any indication that Obama traveled to Russia as a private citizen when he was young.
I think the democrats don’t mind losing because they know they suck at actually holding power as opposed to promising people what they’ll do when they get power.
Neo and rickl, I’ve done a bit of searching, and have come up with nothing about any youthful Obama visit to either Russia or the old Soviet Union. So it’s an apocryphal story at best, so far as I know. I don’t know anything else about the story, including where it may have come from or whether it is true.
In any case, the destruction of the middle class appears to be well under-way. One thinks of the old term, “bourgeoisie.” They must be extinguished. And lo, they are being extinguished.
It cannot be anything other than deliberate. Such things do not happen accidentally, or by-the-way, they are not side effects. If we are to share the wealth, we must seek the wealth where it is–must we not?
The Dems count on the voters having short memories, they’ve been correct so far….
Is it possible that they are trying to influence Obama and save him from some of the mistakes he is making?
Um, no. Obama is not making any mistakes (as he sees it). He’s going right according to the plan. This steamroller’s pretty much on schedule.
It’s time to wake up.
(And if/when Gates does decide to throw in the towel, it’ll be crunch time. Though who knows? Maybe he’s decided to tough it out because he realizes that he’s the only one standing between this administration and, well, better not to say….)
It is impossible for any person with some vestiges of intellectual honesty and self-respect to cooperate with a guy who NEVER accepts his mistakes. Obama is doomed to stay with a team of yes-men and in result to became more and more unhinged. This is the usual fate and curse of tyrants.
# neo-neocon Says:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
betsybounds: to answer your question, I’ve never seen any indication that Obama traveled to Russia as a private citizen when he was young.
Nor has anyone seen his passport/s either and which one he used to travel to Pakistan either.
Who stays, who goes mid term doesn’t matter, once your married to the ‘mob’.
Now and then I hope that he learned something valid from his Harvard experience, and it will prove to have been useful.
yup.. he learned that if you tell the truth, you get beat up by the ideologues, lose your career, and should be a lap dog who signs everything as ok as it goes by, never ever to oppose the left and the sisterhood again. they beat him up good, and harvard paid.
Watson learned the same thing.
you want to know why everyone wont stand up for things? they have to go home and live with a member of the opposing side…
Lysistrata write real.
he learned his lesson…watson learned his
and all the students and eveyrone else who ever thought of telling the truth and not lying for ideology learned to think double think!!!!!!!!
how do you think they got the people of Germany to do all those things… they just hyper-sensitively beat on them for stating the truth, and soon, the truth was gone. and they plaid on ones sense of fairness and justice using disparate impacts to get people directed.
if you respond violently, even if its only verbal, and its not opposed, eventually those can impose PC thinking… especially once they impose the ideal that you dont go against PC thinking. (and who are the originators of that?)
in this way, they are inhibited from validity if one group is trained to be hypersensitive to any sign, even if not real, and attack at it. (sound familiar?)
everyone then pretends that they are extreme thinkers that way in order to use their theory of mind to think LIKE the deviance. invariably, over time, this pattern forces them to adopt the deviance.
and soon, everyone is looking for signs of oppression uinder the bed and every nook and cranny because their ‘conciousness has been raised’…
just like summers and watson, and the thousands of students who will make our future and know better than to question the red queen.
after all, one can live and hide in a lie, better than one can stand the onslaught of the truth when others do not stand behind you.
this is why saints and the truthful are so rare, they take tons of abuse and others dont help… in fact they join in on the abuse as its easier, more fun, and misdirects the force and power they fear away from THEM
Although there is always Artfldgr . . . .
Crazy like a fox…
Has any one added up my hit rate?
i am usually thought of as crazy because i am so far ahead of others on picking up synoptic patterns, that of course i am nuts…
but then again, i dont pay attention to the buzz that constantly says that the conclusinos you would draw “are not right, draw these”.
Leo Szilard
After graduation, Szilard continued to work and teach in Berlin. He became fascinated with the prospects of liberating atomic energy after reading H. G. Wells’ science fiction books. Wells predicted in 1914 that the atomic energy will find its applications in warfare, and the survivors of the war would establish a world government.
the conflagration would sweep the world and wipe the middle class.. that was the purpose to Hitler and Stalin (to fulfill marx the prophet).. after, they changed the words to holocaust, not conflagration…
it was also in 1933 that Hitler’s regime firmly established itself in Germany. Szilard was forced to resign from his position and fled to Vienna. While there, he actively tried to help the Jewish intellectuals in Germany find positions elsewhere and escape. Of course, Leo could not see the full scale of the coming catastrophe, but something was telling him to do everything possible to get out of Germany. (as did my family when they saw an opportunity to come here)
“All we had to do was to turn on a switch, lean back, and watch the screen of a television tube. If flashes of light appeared on the screen, that would mean that neutrons were emitted in the fission process, … and that the large-scale liberation of atomic energy was just around the corner. We turned the switch and ewe saw the flashes. We watched them for a little while and then we switched everything off and went home. That night there was no doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief (Szilard, p. 55).”
Szilard realized that if he could imagine using the atomic energy to produce bombs, then so could the Germans. It was therefore of vital importance to prevent them from producing atomic bomb by al means. The only two known sources of uranium in the world at that time were in the Belgian Congo, and in Czechoslovakia. Since Czechoslovakia was under the Nazi occupation, one could only hope that Hitler would not use its resources. Szilard had already tried to prevent all the theoretical and experimental work on uranium that was done outside of Germany from publication, and ran into several conflicts with other scientists, so the only other thing left for him to do was restrict access to the Congo uranium. Szilard, Fermi, and another Hungarian Edward Teller went to see Einstein in Long Island, who was personally acquainted with the Belgian royal family. Einstein wrote a letter to the queen alarming her about the potential uses of uranium, and the scientists agreed to meet later for the final signing. In between the meetings, Szilard decided that the American Government should also be aware of the threat. He therefore wrote a letter directly to President Roosevelt, had Einstein write an introduction to it, and contacted a Wall Street banker Alexander Sachs who claimed to have easy access to the White House. Sachs delivered the letter to the President, and in October 1939 the government started providing the funding for the Columbia research.
In one farsighted letter to Roosevelt, he predicted the coming era of nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles and the potential for unlimited destruction that they implied.
Just as they did not see eye-to-eye on the Berlin question, Szilard and Khrushchev also failed to reach substantial agreement on a long-range vision of a disarmed world. Reading through the detailed letter in which Szilard explained his views, Khrushchev agreed that the power balance in the U.N. General Assembly would gradually shift away from its predominantly pro-U.S. stance. He praised Szilard’s perceptiveness for predicting that “a world police force, under the central command of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, would not be acceptable to the Soviet Union in the present circumstances, and it might not be acceptable to the U.S. in circumstances that might prevail a few years hence.” Khrushchev disagreed, however, with Szilard’s proposal to get around this obstacle by creating regional U.N. police forces whose actics would be governed by committees of nations specially selected by the superpowers. To Khrushchev, this proposal appeared (correctly) as a return to the traditional conception of dividing the world into spheres of influence belonging to the various Great Powers. He told Szilard “that the nations in the region where such a regional force operates would come under the control of the nations who controlled the police force.”
Szilard explained to Khrushchev that “while the Great Powers might be able to exert a certain amount of influence in such regions, at least their control would not be direct but rather indirect.” The Soviet leader, however, whose nation was just beginning to come into its own as a real superpower, apparently did not find this voluntary shackling of the Great Powers attractive. He brought the conversation to an end, asking Szilard how he would feel if he were to send him a case of vodka. Szilard answered “that I wondered if I couldn’t have something better than vodka.”
{quote} “What do you have in mind,” said Khrushchev, and I said, “Borjum.” A few days earlier when Khrushchev delivered one of his long speeches before the United Nations, he had a glass of mineral water in front of him from which he drank from time to time and several times he pointed to it and said, “Borjum, excellent Russian
{p. 74} mineral water.” When I said, “Borjum,” Khrushchev beamed. “We have two kinds of mineral water in Russia,” he said, “they are both excellent and we shall send you samples of both.” {endquote}
After their meeting, Szilard and Khrushchev continued to correspond with growing frequency. Having received a formal go-ahead from the Soviet leader, Szilard began contacting prominent Americans to enlist their support for a series of high-level but informal discussions. He called his undertaking the “Angels Project,” and explained his choice of this name in a letter to Khrushchev:
{quote} Contrary to what one might think, most people closely connected with the [Kennedy] Administration are keenly aware of the need of avoiding an all-out arms race. Moreover, there are a number of men among them who are “on the side of the angels” and who have consistently taken the position that the United States should be prepared to give up certain temporary advantages it holds, for the sake of attaining an agreement with the Soviet Union that would stop the arms race. {endquote}
sometimes crazy is because you know what others dont…
a man attempting to get people to not go someplace (and is right) is seen as crazy as one who does the same for not reason. it is afterwards that their condition as seen by others changes.
to KNOW what will happen when you mix nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and glycerin, shaking vigorously…
is different than being told and not believing it.
often a great number of accidents that bring us to the hospital is one idiot not believing a warning, and then going out and making it come true. (that could be applied to boomer politics since the mid 50s)
healthcare will now be found CONSTITUTIONAL
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens retiring
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.
Artfldg: since Stevens is one of the biggest liberals on the Court, and Obama will nominate a liberal to fill his position, this changes nothing whatsoever. There will still be the same exact split on the Court, with Kennedy the swing vote.
Of course, if McCain had been elected, one of the good things he could have done would have been to have appointed more conservative Justices to fill these positions. The liberals, of course, might not have obliged by retiring, but Stevens is very old.
Artfldgr: regarding Summers at Harvard, I wrote a series of posts defending him at the time. What was done to him there was dreadful. Part of it was, however, that he was a highly abrasive guy who didn’t know how to flatter and cajole people and had made himself unpopular even prior to that. Many people were looking for something to get angry at him for, and they found it.
Here are my posts on what he actually said about women and science, which was completely reasonable (and some of it was even PC!): see this, this, and this.
mikemcdaniel Says:
“And what, one supposes, did Summers and Geithner think would be the state of things when they accepted the call to ascend to the lofty heights of Mount Obama?”
Right after he was elected it looked like he was appointing moderates…. and I guess he did in the first wave…
betseybounds and Tom . . .
“Thanks, Tom! I hate feeling like the resident lunatic on the block, here.
But I think we’d be fools to not at least consider the possibility.”
Cheer up. You lunatics are not alone. I don’t write too much about economic matters, but I think Obama is a U.S.-destroying monster.
I don’t understand why more people in his administration haven’t resigned yet, unless we have more traitors than even I believe.
Promethea: they are traitors, fools, and/or cowards. I think cowardice is one of the biggest factors. If they resign, they’ll never eat lunch in any liberal town again. They will become pariahs, and will have to go over to the dark side like me.
And they were previously a lot more well-connected than I ever was. I only lost a couple of friends, and have had most of the rest of my friends treat me as though I’m a bit addled. These people will probably lose their livelihoods, practically all of their friends, perhaps their spouses, and almost their entire previous highfalutin identities as movers and shakers.
Ostracism’s a bitch. And who knows what skeletons they have in their closets that they are afraid will be revealed. Obamites are ruthless.
neo . . .
I guess I’ll vote for “cowards” as their number one motivation. As you and I both know, being ostracized and not being invited to a party is a powerful motivator.
I guess few people ever leave high school. 😉
So, neo . . .
What are you going to wear to your local April 15 Tea Party? (prom?)
I’m going to wear blue jeans, a red T-shirt, and a white shirt.
My kids will be SO embarrassed!
Promethea: red white and blue’s a good idea. Depends on the weather, though. And I’ll try to not misspell my sign :-).
Speaking just for myself, I’d be very, very reluctant to accuse President Obama — or anyone in his cabinet — of planning to ‘cancel elections’. (Maybe I’m just gun-shy after all the idiots who said exactly that about President Bush. I never did hear a one of them admit the error.)
This country has never canceled national elections — not during the Civil War, not during the Depression, never. And Americans, I believe, feel strongly that there are some institutions you just don’t mess with. I have to believe that, if Obama even tried to propose postponing elections, he’d be ridden out of town on a rail.
I’ll also comfort myself with the thought of the horrible Presidents we’ve had before now — the stupid, the corrupt, the hopelessly naive — and the Republic survived. As our great Presidents have said, have faith in the American people.
Then again, I’ll hedge my bets, and keep my eyes open — because, as Betsy said, we must never believe that “it can’t happen here”. We do know that BHO strives to increase his power; we do not (yet) know where his limits are. That business with putting ACORN in charge of the 2010 Census scared me.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel in Brookline: I don’t think elections will be canceled—although I wouldn’t rule it out as a remote possibility. Far more likely, I think, is that they will be gamed in some way. But even more likely is that Obama and company have conceded temporary defeat in the next electoral battle, hoping that most of what they have managed to accomplish will not and perhaps even cannot be undone (such as the old saw that entitlements are never repealed), and will grow big government even further, weaken private enterprise and our defenses, and create a majority of people dependent on a welfare state and therefore on them and those in alliance with them. In other words, this bloc does not see any imminent loss of their power as permanent.
And by the way, I see this administration as qualitatively worse than any previous one, in its goals for America. Never before have we had an administration fundamentally hostile to this country and what it stands for, aided and abetted by like-minded leaders in Congress, freed from any consideration of the people’s will.