Trolling the Blogs on Thursday

A little Thursday afternoon blog cruising while we're waiting to see how long Obama stays at the negotiating table this afternoon...

Donald Douglas writes about the Leiby Kletzky murder.  It really is a terrible and haunting case and strikes a cord with all parents, I imagine.  I can't imagine what his parents are going through.  Donald writes:

I think parents need to go with their instincts, especially if they've got young kids. A couple more [years] of hovering ain't gonna harm a child. Frankly, in this day and age, I think families let kids off the leash a bit too early anyway.

I agree.  Kids are so eager to be independent and broaden their boundaries.   And why does it make it worse for me that this child had autism?  Because he was possibly more vulnerable?    Looking for small things to be grateful for, I'm glad the killer confessed.  At least maybe we'll be spared the circus that was Casey Anthony.  I hope they nail this guy and don't screw it up.

Changing gears, Stacy McCain has a post up in which he elaborates on a point I was attempting to make yesterday about the greatest flaw in Obama's presidency is that, as we all predicted, he has no experience in dealing with a crisis.  What he is now facing with the debt crisis is not something he would have ever faced as a community organizer or in teaching a constitutional law class.  Stacy writes:

Go through Obama’s resume and try to find when he was ever in a position of executive authority, responsible for making tough decisions about budget matters, especially in a situation like this, where spending must be cut or else.

Read the rest.  It's a linkapolooza of a post and worth your time.

I've also been sort of struck today at how "Obama is a liar" has been the meme of the day:  first Ann Althouse, (via Memorandum) who is troubled at Obama's use of his mother's struggles right before her death to push (read:  manipulate) emotion for his health care plan:

"This is the standard response of the memoirist: These are my memories. This is how I remember it. Even if I am mistaken, there is truth in the way this story has become part of me. (That notion is expressed beautifully in the interview at the end of the audiobook version of the thoroughly delightful "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir.")

But I don't accept that the President could have an innocently false memory about this story, which he milked dramatically..."

I'm reminded of James Frey and his brouhaha with Oprah after he was caught fabricating details in A Million Little Pieces.     Obama's faulty memory (was it really faulty?) carries much more serious consequences, of course.  It means that the president intentionally deceived a) in order to sell books and/or b) to manipulate the emotions of the American people.  It's troubling.

Also in that meme was Rep. Joe Walsh who posted this video on his YouTube channel in which he says:

"President Obama, quit lying," said Congressman Walsh. "You know darn well that if August 2nd comes and goes there is plenty of money to pay off our debt and cover all social security obligations. And you also know that you and only you have the discretion to make those payments."

Strong words.  Echoes of Rep. Joe Wilson.  I certainly don't agree with most everything Obama says and freely speak out against his policies, but I do think it probably lowers the level of discourse when Congressmen call the president  a "liar" on You Tube.  It goes both ways, though.  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have done their fair share of trash talk.

Okay, after all that, pop over to Saberpoint and read his favorite pirate joke.  We all need a laugh!

Rules of Conduct

Via Glenn Thrush, how to insult the President:

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

Who decided "nitwit" is okay but "hypocrite" is not?

What about lame-brain? Jerk? Intentionally misleading? And we can't talk about "alleged sexual misconduct"?

We're legislating words now? Seriously, though, where was the outrage when Dems were treating Bush badly in HIS speeches to Congress? Granted, nobody shouted "liar" from the floor, and I'm not excusing Wilson's conduct, but the faux outrage is nauseating.

Joe Wilson Must Be a Racist

Sometime next week the Democrats in the House will censure Rep. Joe Wilson with a Resolution unless he publicly apologizes on the House floor for calling Obama a liar last week.

Wilson immediately apologized to Obama who has accepted the apology; the Speaker has even said that everyone needs to move back to the debate on health care. This is apparently not good enough for some, however, and Pelosi's spokesman Brendan Daly said, “He has until next week sometime to apologize and if he doesn’t do it, they’ll go ahead and do a resolution.”

The lesson in this story, it seems, is the continuing double standard between parties in politics. The videos of bad behavior from the Democrats during Bush's speeches have circulated widely this week. Nobody demanded an apology then. Harry Reid called Bush a liar in 2004. Nobody censured Reid or demanded an apology. Apparently the difference is that Reid didn't do it on the House floor.

I'm not defending Wilson's breach of decorum. There were better ways to prove Obama's lies than to shout out from the floor during his speech.

Wilson's frustration with Obama's persistent "misrepresentations" of what is in the bill is shared by many of us. I believe Obama would have a better chance passing this bureaucratic nightmare of a bill if he'd at least tell the truth about it. It's a bad bill, but that's another issue at the moment.

Maureen Dowd doesn't see any problem with the bill, it seems, or with the lies. She doesn't think Obama was lying. She thinks Wilson disagreed with Obama just because Obama is a black man. For a party that purports a desire to move beyond race, it seems the left is the party constantly bringing it up. She writes, "But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it."

It's the old "shoot the messenger" theory, I guess. Wilson pointed out that Obama was lying when he said illegals would not be covered, so he must be punished. He must be a racist because he disagrees with Obama.

Dowd even takes shots at the South in her column today, "For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both." Stereotype much, Maureen?

Of course, as we all know, Wilson was correct in his belief that illegals would be able to obtain coverage because as many of us have been pointing out for months, there is no mechanism in place to stop them.

At any rate, in the end, Wilson was wrong for shouting from the floor; he apologized to Obama; Obama accepted the apology. Committees began work this week to try to close the loophole in the bill regarding illegals. Move on.

(H/T: Memeorandum)

No, Seriously, I'm Wide Awake!

When I get off the floor, where I've been because I'm laughing so hard, I'm going to write a post on this:

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who shouted "you lie!" at President Obama during his Wednesday night address to Congress, admitted to regularly consuming caffeine pills in 2007.

It is unknown if Wilson still takes NoDoz, a brand of pill that contains 200 milligrams of caffeine a pop. By comparison, a seven ounce cup of drip coffee contains 115 to 175 milligrams of caffeine.

A source told The Hill in 2007 that the congressman ingested the tablets “like candy," but Wilson insisted he was not addicted despite the fact that he had been taking them since high school.

"No, seriously officer! I was wide awake at the time I called Obama a liar!"

ROFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!