No One Is Safe

Hey, Judge Sotomayor, Let’s Talk About My ‘Rich Experiences’ As a White Male

So, as Hot Air points out, Judge Sotomayor was at it seven years earlier than her now-famous 2001 remark. All the more reason to call her on the carpet for encouraging a “whine-for-what’s-mine” culture, as my column does today:

Hey, Judge Sotomayor, Let’s Talk About My ‘Rich Experiences’ As a White Male

I know, I know. You’ve already seen approximately 1,253,678 comments about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s 2001 remark that she “would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

But I simply can’t resist sharing my personal response, which is, basically: Oh, yeah? How about my “rich experiences” as a “white male” of the same generation as Judge Sotomayor?

Permits? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Permits!

Clever of the O-Ring to deny the Washington Tea Party protesters permits to gather outside the Treasury and for their tea to be delivered, and then to clear the alternate site — Lafayette Park — when tea was dumped over the fence into the White House.

Somehow I don’t remember there being any permits at the original Tea Party.

Let’s have some real protests!

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 Uncategorized 2 Comments

“Quick and Surgical?” Yeah, Like a Lobotomy

As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air brings to our attention, it seems that after all the Sturm and Drang of recent months, Barack Obama is now leaning toward a “quick and surgical” bankruptcy. Which brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s observation that a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.

An Auto Renaissance? The Sun God Commands It

You bail two auto giants, and what do you get? Three months older and $18 billion deeper in debt.

Tell me again what part of President Obama’s recent decree regarding the futures of General Motors and Chrysler would not have been accomplished had the feds given the companies a gentle nudge toward Chapter 11 – instead of forking over a mountain of taxpayer IOUs?

Let’s see. Chrysler’s private equity owner, Cerberus, is giving up the entire value of its stake. Could that have happened in bankruptcy court? Yes.

Both auto companies’ lenders and bondholders are going to take a haircut, and major concessions will be wrung out of unions. Could that have happened in bankruptcy? For sure.

Much of GM’s management and board were led to the firing squad. Could that have happened as a result of Chapter 11? Of course.

A large stake in Chrysler will be taken by a foreign automaker, Fiat, and less desirable pieces of GM will be sold off to pay obligations while the “good” parts are reconstituted as a going concern. Could that have been an outcome of a Chapter 11 filing? You betcha.

And even as, out of one side of its mouth, the O-ministration’s auto task force admits that GM’s Chevy Volt electric vehicle will be “too expensive to be commercially successful in the short-term,” out of the other side of its piehole, it insists it will push the automaker to transform itself into a “company of the future” offering more energy-efficient (and equally unprofitable) vehicles.

Could that have taken place in a bankruptcy court? Oops.

Not to mention the increasing likelihood that even after all the government’s troubles, the automakers will still be subject to a “quick and surgical” bankruptcy process.

“Quick and surgical.” You know. Like a lobotomy. › Continue reading

Tags: bankruptcy, Chrysler, General Motors

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 Barack Obama, bailout 3 Comments

Special Olympics v. Macaca: “D” is for “Double Standard”

My column today uses Sleek Barry’s Special Olympics gaffe as a departure to suggest a new “narrative” on the President: as an arrogant yet incompetent ingenue. I note that HotAir is already picking up on this thread with its “Obamateurism of the Day.”

Special Olympics v. Macaca: “D” is for “Double Standard”

Yo! What do I think about Barack Obama’s “Special Olympics” gaffe? So glad you asked.

I would normally want to give Sleek Barry some love. And agree with Tim Shriver – Kennedy nephew and Special Olympics Chairman– that he “didn’t want to embarrass or give anybody any more reason for pain or any kind of suffering.”

And with the Wall Street Journal that “the real gutter ball goes to anyone trying to score political points off the remark.”

And even with Washington Post White House correspondent Michael A. Fletcher, who responded to an online chatter’s comment – “People misspeak sometimes. Apologize and move on” – with a heartfelt “amen.”

Yet deep down in my own Grinch-like, two-sizes-too-small pundit’s heart, I can’t help but contrast the kid-glove treatment accorded O’s “misspeak” with the brutalization of former Virginia Senator George Allen for his equally light-hearted and brain-dead “macaca” remark a couple years back.

The Senator, too, apologized. More like a virtual apology tour. Apologies in a statement, and later in person, to the young man he targeted. Apologies to Indian-American groups. Apologies to the public. (Unfortunately, not to actual macacas for linking them to Democrats.)

Yet the media – especially the influential Post – launched into high dudgeon, if not low orbit. A page-one Post story echoed charges that the comment was “demeaning and insensitive,” as an editorial hammered Allen for “bullying your opponents and calling them strange names” – the first of at least 45 articles, editorials and opinion pieces on Allen’s indiscretion. › Continue reading

Tags: gaffe, Special Olympics

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 Barack Obama 269 Comments

An Absolute Lock

“One of these days in your travels,” observes Guys and Dolls protagonist Sky Masterson, relating his father’s advice, “a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.”

In other words, any bet that looks like a sure thing is a sucker bet. Except this one.

Within the next 24 hours, someone from the Kennedy or Shriver families, founders of the Special Olympics, will emerge to offer Sleek Barry air cover and absolution for his slipup comparing his bowling performance to the events for mentally challenged young people, which is widely engendering what Hot Air calls “outrageous outrage.”

It’s one you could take to the bank. If there are any left once the Sun King is done.

UPDATE: Told you so: Writes the Washington Post:

Soon after the show, Obama phoned Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, to apologize …

Shriver, the nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), whose early endorsement helped propel Obama to the Democratic nomination, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” yesterday that the president expressed regret “in a way that I think was very moving.”

Obama, Shriver said, told him “he did not intend to humiliate the population, didn’t want to embarrass or give anybody any more reason for pain or any kind of suffering.”

This from the newspaper that produced at least 30 stories on George Allen’s “macaca” slip. Sauce for the goose?

Friday, March 20th, 2009 Barack Obama 1 Comment

AIG: Awash In Government

My column today — like every column these days — focuses on AIG, and what happens when a company gets in bed with the government. They get, as Michelle Malkin points out, ex post facto tax legislation and who knows what else!

AIG: Awash In Government

You may not have known that AIG once stood for American International Group. But we surely know what it now stands for now.

Awash In Government.

Suckered by then-New York Fed Chairman, one-time tax evader, now Treasury Secretary and always indispensable man Timothy Geithner, Washington pulled the bonehead play of bailing out the once-mighty insurance giant to the tune of more than 170 billion smackers. So now we’re treated to the spectacle of the political class foaming at the mouth over the fact that AIG paid out billions of those dollars to meet obligations to foreign banks and tens of millions more in bonuses owed the very financial wizards who dragged the company under.

We’re all agape as creative legislators one-up each other in over-the-top theatrics to claim the crown of BMOC (By-far Most Outraged in Congress). By suggesting, for example, tax bills designed to slam the extra pay with 100 percent levies. Or, in the case of my old boss and Prairie Populist, Chuck Grassley, calling on the bonus babies to off themselves.

To all of which I respond: Oh, grow up!

The Citi Sleeps … with the Fishes

Somewhat ironically, to be found in the same Monday edition of the Wall Street Journal whose front page reports that Citibank is about to sell its soul to the feds is a full-page puff ad about a CSR microfinance effort by the bank.

The ad closes with the bank’s slogan: “the Citi never sleeps.”

The Citi is about to sleep all right … with the fishes. › Continue reading

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 Uncategorized 19 Comments

Indispensable

Yo, Timmy Geithner, come on down! You’re the indispensable man.

At least that’s what we were told a few weeks back by the Administration and Senators on both sides of the aisle when Timbo was waved through confirmation process despite revelations that he is, to put it plainly, a tax cheat. › Continue reading

Tags: Geithner

Thursday, February 12th, 2009 Barack Obama, Democrats, Economy, Politics, bailout, budget, healthcare, stimulus No Comments

What Happens with A-Rod Doesn’t Stay with A-Rod

My column today.

What Happens With A-Rod Doesn’t Stay With A-Rod

I feel the need to state that no performance-enhancing drugs have been employed in preparing this or any previous column.

There. That feels better. For me, at least. I know some of you (including my editor) are probably wishing I would take something at least thought-enhancing.

New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez – and other figures in the news – probably wish they had as well.

Let’s see, what’s worse?
a) Cheating on the field (A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and 100-plus others)
b) Cheating on your wife (A-Rod, Clemens)
c) Cheating on your taxes (Tom Daschle and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner)
d) Cheating your public through bald-faced lies, some reaching to the level of perjury (all the aforementioned)

The answer – none of the above. Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating.

Stimulust … and Windfall Prophets

My column today dashes the Dems … and especially the Sun King … for their stimulust.

BTW, I’m stunned to read at HotAir that nearly 60 percent of those surveyed in a Gallup Poll have turned thumbs down on the GOP’s stand on the stimulus plan. I’m hoping that won’t break the Republicans’ surprising and encouraging unity against the Obamulus monster.

Stimulust . . . and Windfall Prophets

“The first part of my plan is a $1,000 emergency energy rebate . . . I am proposing that we pay for this rebate by taxing the windfall profits of oil companies . . .” – Barack Obama, August 1, 2008.

On the date the Yes-We-Candidate proposed his Emergency Economic Plan, the price of oil stood at $125.10 a barrel, having swan-dived $22 in just 21 short days.

And yes, the earnings for that particular quarter of Exxon Mobil, for example, rose by nearly $4 billion – a hefty 42 percent. But a funny thing happened on the way to our Emergency Energy Rebates: The giant’s fourth-quarter income dropped some – oops – $4 billion.

Meanwhile, prices are now bumping along at around $40 a barrel. Gone with the Windfall, one might say.

But never fear. For a real bonanza, look no further than the Greatest Snow(job) on Earth – the stimulus package brought to you by the Sun King, High Priestess Nancy Pelosi, and l’eminent grise Harry Reid.

BobMaistros.com