Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Response to Jack Cafferty


At first, I thought I was reading satire. I thought it was a joke. I kept waiting for the punchline. I was reading Jack Cafferty's post on CNN today.

Let me just share the first part, what I thought was a joke:

"What a welcome change to feel like someone is running the country instead of running it into the ground. President Obama has done more in eight weeks than George W. Bush did in eight years -- unless you include starting a couple of wars.

While the armchair quarterbacks second guess the new president, he gets up every day and does things, lots of things. Whether it's creating commissions for women and girls, ordering the investigation of President Bush's use of signing statements, or jamming a huge stimulus package through Congress, the man is working his tail off. And he seems to be loving every minute of it. It's almost as though our president was born to do exactly what he's doing. He's leading, and boy, is that refreshing."

Where is Michelle Malkin with her drool bucket? But then I remembered, this is Jack Cafferty who back in September said that if Obama didn't win the election it was racism. The same Jack Cafferty who, earlier this month, wrote a love letter to Michelle Obama.

Let me just address a couple of the points Cafferty brings up. He accuses George W. Bush of starting two wars but he might go back to 9/11/2001 and review the events of that day and the days right after. He might review the attacks on innocent Americans on that day, and on our own soil for that matter. He might review subsequent events also such as the beheading of Daniel Pearl, an American.

I don't think George Bush started that.

I don't think George Bush ran the country "into the ground" either. America saw a great deal of economic growth under George W. Bush even after the catastrophe of 9/11 in his first term which nearly devastated the airline industry.

Not to rehash the record on this too much, but Bush and Company tried to do something about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lenders primarily responsible for the housing debacle, but the Democratic Congress, including Barney Frank, shut them down. Oh there is plenty of blame to go around, I don't deny that, but Mr. Cafferty overlooks that point.

Cafferty goes on to celebrate what he sees as Obama's accomplishments so far, in fact, praising Obama for "jamming a huge stimulus package through Congress." You can see why at this point I thought I was still reading satire. The word choice of "jamming" was just so appropriate.

Then Cafferty criticizes Bush yet again (he must have gone to school with Obama on this skill) when he says that Bush would appear "in front of a handpicked audience to utter some banalities" and I wondered if Cafferty has ever seen his man Obama off the TelePrompter? Uhh..uhm, ah, well, uhh, uhm, probably not.

To his credit, Cafferty does point to the appointment of Tim Turbo Tax Challenged Geithner as a possible faux pas, equating this appointment to a "stubbed toe." Geithner, the architecht of the AIG bailout who missed all those bonus contracts. Cafferty even points out that maybe "signing that omnibus bill with all those earmarks in it...was probably a mistake." That's a little bigger than a "stubbed toe," don't you think, Mr. Cafferty?

In fact, Geithner has not been the only Stubbed Toe Appointment we have here: Tom Daschle, Eric "Nation of Cowards" Holder, Nancy Killefer, Charles Freeman, Bill Richardson, Hilda Solis (well, her husband, anyway)...should I go on?

No, by the time I got to the last paragraph I had figured out that Cafferty was indeed serious in this drool-fest. By the time he said Obama has "got ambitious ideas on how to solve [the country's problems], and he communicates a sense of calm and confidence to the rest of us as he goes about his business. Will all his ideas work? Of course not. But if you throw enough stuff at the wall, some of it will stick" I figured out Cafferty was serious. Speak for yourself on the "calm and confidence" thing, Mr. Cafferty, because I'm not getting that.

It's the "Spaghetti Approach" to leading: Throw everything at the wall and see if it sticks.

He closed with the reassuring "And at least I don't go to bed at night worried that I'll wake up in the morning to find out we're about to invade someone."

No Mr. Cafferty, you might instead wonder about who is going to invade US. Do you seriously feel safer now that Obama has vowed to close Gitmo and has already released terrorists? Now that pilots are no longer allowed to carry guns on airplanes for protection against another 9/11? Now that Russian bombers may soon be based in Venezuela and Cuba? Now that Russia is vowing rearmament? Now that Obama is not denying throwing our veterans under the bus with regard to service related health insurance?

I'm glad you don't go to bed at night worried, Mr. Cafferty, because I sure do. I'm terrified.

7 comments:

Sandy said...

Wow! Excellent post! My sentiments exactly. I would have never read Mr. Cafferty's post after I read the first sentence. I'm just that jaded that I don't want to hear any more BS!

Anonymous said...

There is no way Obama is going to fail. The news media won't let him.
Remember Baghdad Bob who was on the news everyday telling the world there were no Americans anywhere near Baghdad? I laughed and thought it was funny.
Now, I'm not laughing any more, because we have our own versions of Baghdad Bob, and Jack Cafferty is just one of several hundred in America.

Mary Frances Archer said...

i can't believe Bush (making the WORLD hate Americans) made you feel safer b/c he was sending his guys to war in Iraq (yeah - that little side trip that didn't have a fucking thing to do with 9/11 or the mysterious weapons of destruction and was all about oil) with insufficient weapons and manpower

yukio ngaby said...

NeNe: "i can't believe Bush (making the WORLD hate Americans) made you feel safer b/c he was sending his guys to war in Iraq (yeah - that little side trip that didn't have a fucking thing to do with 9/11 or the mysterious weapons of destruction and was all about oil) with insufficient weapons and manpower"

And Obama has made this all better and us safer how?

Oh, and it's all about the oil thing, the US imports most of its oil from Canada, Russia, and Venezuela. Western Europe is most tied to the Middle East Oil. The whole "all about the oil thing" is nonsense. When are we going to invade Canada to insure their continued oil supply?

Pat Austin Becker said...

I'm with you Yukio; Iraq was not about oil. I have some folks that live down the street from me that from time to time put a sign up in their yard protesting "No More Blood for Oil!"

Iraq was about a lot of things, but oil was not the reason.

There's no question that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein running a genocide over there and filling more mass graves; without his people starving and living in poverty while he lives in palaces and plots his next terror plan.

The people that scream about the injustices in Darfur are the first to complain about Iraq. If we'd called it a War on Genocide instead of a War on Terror then they probably would be fine.

Maybe BHO is right about this name changing thing he has going.

Anonymous said...

Canada doesn't have enough oil to sustain us through eternity. The middle east does. So, yes, the Iraq War was about OIL. It was about establishing an ally and stable government in a region rich with the oil we need. That's it. Please, fool yourselves into thinking that it was about stopping genocide.

Greater genocides are occurring around the world as we speak. We don't stop all of them because we can't stop ALL OF THEM. To portray the Iraq War as the moral end of a genocide is silly.

And to think YOU ARE safer now that Sadaam is out of power is even sillier. Sadaam was in power for DECADES, and he NEVER CAUSED THE US ANY HARM.

Yes, there are people in the world who don't like us, but Sadaam was not the mastermind.

Have you ever wondered why the elder Bush didn't take Sadaam out in the first Gulf War? It wouldn't have been that difficult. Its because he realized that Sadaam was INSIGNIFICANT. HE POSED NO THREAT TO US.

Anonymous said...

Cafferty is a joke! His observation of the Obama's is a joke! They are no Kennedy's and never will be! People need to take off the blinders, this man is ruining our country. And about oil, people, this country has an oil reserve in the upper northwest, Wyoming, Montana area that is larger than Iraq, Saudi,and large enough to sustain the US completely independant of anyone for the next 41 years as stated in the news, so why aren't we using it?! The american people are getting ripped off all the was around and we are letting the GOV'T do it. Obama has no charisma to me and I think he is the one who will do this country in. When he shows his real birth certificate, and I mean the real one, then the true colors will come out. What gain did his step-grandmother have when she said she was there in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born. Clafferty, dig into that one if you want to do reporting and find the real truth!