Obama: Too Tiny For The Office?

In its current issue Newsweek is arguing that the presidency is just too big for one man?
Is the office to big for one man or is the man who's in the office to tiny for the job?
Now, NewsBusters has discovered that the Washington Post used pretty mush this same argument in the 1980 when it tried to defend another failed president, Jimmy Carter. The Post then owned Newsweek.
Here's how NewsBusters tells it:

In the November 22 issue of Newsweek magazine, Daniel Stone defended the Obama administration by blaming the institution of the presidency for failures rather than the chief executive himself: "The issue is not Obama, it’s the office....Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency?" The same argument was used to excuse an overwhelmed Jimmy Carter 30 years earlier. 

The sub-headline for the piece read: "The presidency has grown, and grown and grown, into the most powerful, most impossible job in the world." At one point, Stone explained: "Among a handful of presidential historians Newsweek contacted for this story, there was a general consensus that the modern presidency may have become too bloated." A January 13, 1980 Washington Post article made a similar conclusion about the beleaguered Carter administration: "Voters have lowered their expectations of what any president can accomplish; they have accepted the notion that this country may never again have heroic, larger-than-life leadership in the White House."

Of course Newsweek was wrong when it said we would never have heroic, larger-than-life leadership in the White House. Within a year Ronald Reagan took the oath of office and America was once again on its way toward having another "heroic, larger-than-life" figure in the White House.
Over and over the liberal media get it wrong.
But they never learn -- and they never change.
And neither do the people who follow them, or so it seems.
Click here to read the full NewsBusters report.

Kathy Griffin Is An Obnoxious Jerk

Kathy Griffin is a loud, disgusting, foul-mouthed jerk.
In a world where almost nothing is shocking, this vulgar, in-your-face "comedienne" keeps trying to top herself with outrageous comments and offensive behavior.
Kathy Grifin isn't attractive.
Kathy Griffin isn't clever.
Kathy Griffin isn't entertaining.
And Kathy Griffin isn't funny.
If fact, she's obnoxious.
But Big Media routinely give Kathy Griffin a pass.
Why? You know the answer. Because Kathy Griffin is a shrill, full-out liberal.
So, while Dennis Miller rarely gets a pass from critics and the enforcers of all that is deemed politically-correct. Kathy Griffin is allowed to verbally vomit on just about Republican, conservative or tea-partier she can finds.
So now Griffin has declared Senator Scott Brown's daughter's "prostitutes" and the journalists and commentators at CNN and Bravo are laughing about it. Ain't it funny? NOT!
Here's more on this story from Matt Hadro at NewsBusters:
On her Bravo TV show Tuesday night, left-wing comedian Kathy Griffin referred to Sen. Scott Brown's two daughters as "prostitutes," and a CNN reporter apparently thought it hysterical. [Audio available here.]
The incident is also ironic because Griffin was dropped from this year's CNN New Year's Eve program, due to her profanity-laced banter with Anderson Cooper last New Year's Eve.
Griffin's words were immediately followed by predictable on-screen text that read "Scott Brown's daughters ARE NOT prostitutes." So, why did the network run her statement at all?
The foul-mouthed comedian had plenty of gems within the hour-long expose of her efforts in D.C., which included a gaffe that Roll Call picked up where she jokingly called Rep. James Clyburn a "queen."
While she was being "coached" by King and Bash, Griffin reminisced, "Remember when the Republicans tried to get that nutbag Sarah Palin to sound credible before the Vice Presidential debate?.... Well, that's sort of like what John and Dana did for me."
When Griffin was "coached" by the PR experts at the Human Rights Campaign, before she ventured up to Capitol Hill to campaign for a repeal of DADT, she was shown videos of Sens. McCain and Chambliss arguing against the repeal.
"You f****** d***bags can suck it," Griffin spat about the senators. "F****** losers, old fartbags. You don't know what the f*** you're talking about."
Griffin, who was readying herself for a trip to Washington, DC to rally and drum up support for a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," brought CNN reporters (husband and wife) Dana Bash and John King onto the show to "coach" her for handling Washington. Bash is a congressional correspondent for CNN, while King anchors the news hour "John King, USA."
When the couple showed Griffin a picture of Sen. Scott Brown and asked her to identify the figure, she responded "Scott Brown – who is a senator from Massachusetts, and has two daughters that are prostitutes."
Bash erupted with laughter, while King grimaced.

Matthews: Obama Is Christ

From Geoffrey at NewsBusters:
Introducing Howard Dean, on Wednesday night's "Hardball," Chris Matthews indirectly compared Barack Obama to Jesus Christ as he introduced the former head of the DNC and 2004 presidential candidate as "the man who really laid out the path for Barack Obama. He was the St. John the Baptist...leading for that fellow."
In the Christian faith St. John the Baptist is considered to be the precursor to Jesus Christ, so in Matthews' metaphor of Democratic presidential politics that would have to make Obama, Jesus. For his part Dean, justifiably, appeared uncomfortable with the comparison, as he appreciated Matthews' promise to "not make any further reference there to the Deity."
After that awkward introduction Matthews, in the ensuing segment, went on to call Republicans like John McCain, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney "imbeciles" for their various criticisms of Obama, as he continued his "idiot button" routine that he began on Tuesday's show.
Chris Matthews (aka "Aunt Blabby") is a disgrace to TV "journalism," a notorious liberal apologist and shameless Obama worshiper. More and more Matthews comes across as a self-absorbed jerk and a total gas bag.

Newsweek: Obama As God

From Kyle Drennen at NewsBusters:

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility...The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world."

Matthews discussed Obama’s upcoming speech marking the 65^th anniversary of D-Day and compared it to that of Ronald Reagan. He then turned to Thomas and asked: "Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?" Thomas replied: "Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial."

Thomas elaborated on Obama as God, patronizingly explaining: "He's going to bring all different sides together...Obama is trying to sort of tamper everything down. He doesn't even use the word terror. He uses extremism. He's all about let us reason together...He's the teacher. He is going to say, ‘now, children, stop fighting and quarreling with each other.’ And he has a kind of a moral authority that he – he can – he can do that." In response, Matthews wondered: "If there's a world election between him and Osama Bin Laden, he's running a good campaign." Thomas agreed: "Yes, he is."

Maureen Dowd Plagiarizes?!

From Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters:
On a regular basis, NewsBusters has warned readers of the infiltration into traditional media outlets content written by left-wing bloggers.
On Sunday, Josh Marshall of the liberal website Talking Points Memo accused New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd of plagiarizing a piece he posted a few days ago.
Dowd has now admitted her mistake.
As Marshall wrote Thursday:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Dowd wrote before she got caught:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

As such, Dowd merely substituted "the Bush crowd was" for "we were." The rest is exactly the same.
Dowd's piece now reflects her admission:

Josh Marshall said in his blog: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.” [...]

An earlier version of this column failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo.

So, we not only have so-called journalists channeling nonsense from the liberal blogosphere, but now they're just cutting-and-pasting from it.
And newspaper owners wonder why their subscription rates continue to plummet.

Obama As Spock? No!

From Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters:
Remember how the left always asserted that George W. Bush was stupid? Remember how they were so thrilled to have the Obammessiah that spoke so well, a president that was perpetually the smartest man in the room? Well, after the many stammering TelePrompter free stump debacles during the campaign, many began to doubt this claim of his superior intelligence. Here is another small dent in that perception. That no one in the media is crowing about this as they always did with Bush is telling. Newsweek conducted a Q and A with the president at the end of which appears a few questions concerning his recent choices of entertainment. During the Q and A The One admitted he watched the reboot of Star Trek in the White House movie theater claiming that everyone was saying he was Spock. But two other things he said clanged badly: one arrogant and the other somewhat ignorant.

First the arrogant:

And the last movie you saw?

Now, movies I've been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and--[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

So The One likes to be called Mr. Spock, eh? That is bad enough, but the fact that he so automatically called the White House "my house" is simply as arrogant as it comes. It isn't "your" house Mr. President. It's the people's! The man's sense of entitlement is disgusting.

Next the ignorant:

Did you watch that when you were growing up?

I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole--the special effects weren't real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

I find it amusing that the "Spock" of the White House, the smartest president evah doesn't know the difference between "evocative" and "provocative." By the later half of his sentence Obama clearly meant provocative, not evocative. The word evocative simply means to provoke emotional response or memories. But by focusing on "philosophy" and "commentary" Obama obviously meant that Star Trek provoked thinking so it was intellectually provocative not emotionally evocative. Additionally, how much evoking can a 10-year-old indulge? So, why doesn't the smartest man in the world know the difference between provocative and evocative? Maybe he isn't as smart as the left would have it? So, will we see Jon Stewart making fun of this? How about a broadside by Bill Maher? A slap by Olbermann or Maddow? Don't hold your breath!

Ingraham Nails Specter

From Jeff Poor at NewsBusters:
It's a question we've all been waiting to hear answered. Unfortunately, it took a conservative talk radio host to ask it and didn't come from the mainstream media.
In an interview with Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, Pa., on Feb. 9, talk show host Laura Ingraham asked why he and Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are the only three out of 229 Republican members of Congress to support the stimulus. She inquired if it might have had something to do with being invited to the White House by President Barack Obama.
"Is it nice to be wined and dined at the White House?" Ingraham asked. "And, you're treated pretty well when you're a Republican bucking other Republicans, right Senator?"
Specter told Ingraham he wasn't being "wined and dined" by the Obama White House. Specter wasn't on the guest list of one infamous White House party that included several Republican and Democrat members of Congress, which included cocktails and wagyu beef. However, Specter did attend a Super Bowl party hosted by the White House on Feb. 1 as the only Republican member in attendance.
"Now let's get off it Laura," Specter replied. "I'm not drinking any wine at the White House and I don't dine at the White House. If the president wants to talk to me - I talk to him and I make my own independent judgment. Don't give me the wine and dine baloney young lady."
Ingraham challenged Specter again by asking him if that had any effect on his position on the stimulus, which he outlined in a Feb. 9 Washington Post op-ed.
"Absolutely not, anymore than talking to anybody else," Specter said. "He's the president and I talk to him. I talked to people who were opposed to it and talk to everybody. I got a pretty good record, Laura for making up my own mind."
According to Specter, the legislation will create jobs immediately in his state and cited Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and a mayor of "a major city" as evidence.
"Laura, we have a big chunk of this money going to roads, highways and mass transit," Specter said. "I talked to the governor of my state and he said we could do it in nine months. And I said, ‘That's really not good enough.' And he said, ‘If we really twist and turn we can cut it back to six months. And I talked to the mayor of a major city this morning that has a parking plot going up, which is out of money and the work can go forward this afternoon."
"And there are projects, shovel-ready, which can be put to good use immediately and put people to work," Specter said.

Forget Lincoln, King

Aunt Blabby (aka Chris Matthews) has been at it again.

News Busters reports that after Obama's laborious 45-minute oration last week Matthews couldn't wait to declare the OH!man's windy lecture "worthy of Abraham Lincoln," and also claimed it bypassed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" address as the "best speech ever given on race in this country."

And now The Blabberino has opened his mouth again declaring that Obama "gets to me" and adding that he just can't help but get emotional when Obama speaks, like some kind of impressionable Obamaniac.

Not that we should be shocked or surprised about Aunt Blabby's schoolgirl crush. He's already said that that he feels a "thrill up my leg" when Obama goes into one of his stem winders. It's like Matthews is breathless waiting for Obama to slide the glass slipper onto his tootsy.

Even on Good Friday Chris Matthews just can't shut up. He simply can't stop gushing, can't stop preening, can't stop bloviating. Go away, Chris - go far, far away!