Korean War II?

Click to enlarge.

I haven't had a Dictator Watch posting in quite some time, but I probably should have been a little more attentive.  The threat of international pariahs like Kim Jong Il do not just go away because the United States and other Western economies have turned a blind eye.  Being busy with a faltering economy and being preoccupied with a midterm election does not stop foreign despots from busying themselves with suppressing their own people or aggressively attacking nearby nations.

No.  In fact it encourages them to do so.

100 Days - more reviews.

Here's the Democrat take on things.



More Democrats - CBS;



More moderate views from US News and World Report:

Obama's budget solution?

What's the opposite of a tempest in a teapot? Well there's this;

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

The official previewed Topic A for Monday's Cabinet meeting on grounds of anonymity because it will be a private session. He said Obama will be reminding Cabinet members that financially-pressed families are looking to the government to spend their money wisely.

The president's first formal Cabinet meeting is being held just days after a series of "Tea Party" demonstrations across the country in which protesters challenged the administration over it's massive spending. A cut of $100 million in a multitrillion-dollar federal budget likely will be criticized by Obama's opponents as inadequate.

Then there's the old saying 'don't pee on a forest fire'. The example and the saying convey about the same level of effort at the government's fiscal inferno.

AP Still carrying Obama's water

According to a story in the AP, despite the slew of problems that President Obama has faced with his appointments - the misfires, the vetting problems, the withdrawals from consideration - he's still doing a better job that either Bush or Clinton.

The rationale is that despite the 'increasingly cumbersome' system, he's going to have the second level appointments done faster than his predecessors. That's the bar for success now? And if it follows the pattern with cabinet appointments will the measure of success change again? Perhaps it can be based on 'most diverse'. Or most names beginning with 'O'. Whatever happened to best person for the job?

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama doesn't have time for a victory lap now that his Cabinet is finally largely in place. One level down, he faces gaping holes in the ranks he needs to fill if there is to be any hope of turning his ambitious agenda into action on health care, the environment and much more.

After a spurt of recent activity that followed a problem-plagued start, Obama is outpacing George W. Bush and Bill Clinton on appointments. But Obama, like his two immediate predecessors, is bogged down in a system that has grown increasingly cumbersome over the years. And he's added tougher-than-ever background checks and ethics rules.

"Obama will be faster than Clinton and Bush when all is said and done, but it's still a slow process," said New York University professor Paul Light, an expert on the federal government. "A turtle is a turtle is a turtle. The Obama administration is a pretty fast turtle, but it's no hare."

The AP even tries to sound impartial by pointing out that despite his speed, he's still slow. The whole premise of the article is biased, how is saying he's a 'fast turtle' even remotely close to journalistic integrity?

The source they are citing, professor Paul Light, is a fellow at the liberal leaning Brookings Institute (the same one that the Huffington Post views as conservative). Who better to 'criticize' the president's transition than someone who leans in the same direction?

The criticism grows more intense at the bottom of the article;

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a think tank, said Obama was setting "Mother Teresa standards in a city with very few saints."

West called the number of appointees in place "dangerously low given the enormity of the challenges we face. Obama is holding his people to such a high standard it is wounding his administration."

Now the criticism is that he's setting standards too high? What a terrible character flaw. Worse, what bunk. Daschle, Geithner, Richardson, Solis...

Let's suppose he's learned his lessons from those names and is finally being more careful. That's a best case scenario. But the word saints doesn't belong in the same paragraph as the likes of some of his top-line appointees, clearly with their own sets of very real problems. Mother Theresa standards apparently only apply to underlings, and not the top brass.

Sustainable Recovery?

Is the DJIA bounce the beginning of a sustainable recovery? I wouldn't bet on it just yet. Not if the administration keeps opening its mouth or keeps trying to OWN industries.

So far, it still looks dicey, despite the last few weeks. Not only for the markets, but for freedom.

Sinkers and Floaters

Pardon the foray into to guttural Jon Stewart-ism, but there's an interesting analogy worth pointing out. There was a Japanese game show a few years back that got picked up by Spike TV and 'translated' with a humorous slant. The show was called Most Extreme Challenge. One of the physical challenges was called Sinkers and Floaters and it clearly had a double-entendre.

The challenge was to successfully run/walk all the way across a pond via a bunch of stones, some of which floated when you stepped on them and some that would sink.

There's a parallel with the Obama administration in that it seems like a lot of people in the administration are sinking under the weight of their responsibilities. Not to mention the rating of the job they are doing as far as the secondary interpretation of sinkers and floaters goes. With respect to the latter, I'm not sure there are any floaters at this point aside from Obama's approval rating still being above the water mark.

In terms of sinking and floating, here's a partial breakdown so far.

Sinkers:

John Deutch (somebody who has to get sunk)
Chas Freeman
Tom Daschle
Nancy Killefer
Bill Richardson
H. Rodgin Cohen
Annette Nazareth
Caroline Atkinson
Judd Gregg (although a floater as far as the GOP is concerned)
Hilda Solis (although she apparently floated back up from the bottom - who knew?)
Jon Cannon (NEW)
The remaining unappointed Treasury positions

Floaters (*including those in the process of sinking):

Barack Obama (*)
Joe Biden (always sinking but floating back up)
Rahm Emmanuel
Tim Geithner (*)
Robert Gibbs (*)
Janet Napolitano (*)
Arne Duncan
Tom Vilsack
Ken Salazar
Leon Panetta (should have sank)

Quite the track record; it sort of makes you wish it really were a Japanese game show.

Out of touch - example 34C

According to the Canadian Press;

In rare praise, U.S. calls Venezuelan presidential referendum democratic

WASHINGTON — The United States says the referendum that cleared the way for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election was democratic.

It was rare praise for a U.S. antagonist after years of criticism.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid today noted "troubling reports of
intimidation."

But he added that for the most part, the referendum was "fully consistent with democratic process."

Was it? Was it really? Oh it must be, because Russia news and information agency RIA NOVOSTI had this to say in it's commentary about the next steps:

MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - President Hugo Chavez is expected to sign into law on Thursday an amendment to Venezuela's constitution removing term limits for the head of state and other elected officials.

The central elections committee released the official results of Sunday's referendum
on Wednesday and passed them to Venezuela's National Assembly. The parliament
will review the results and pass them to the president to be signed into law. The amendment changes the wording of the country's constitution from "the president may be reelected only once" to simply "the president may be reelected."

Some 11.7 million people cast ballots out of the 17 million eligible to vote. The referendum was passed with 6.3 million for (54.86%) and 5.2 million against 45.13%). International observers and the U.S. State Department have confirmed that the voting process met international democratic standards.

(emphasis added)



It seems that the Obama administration is either turning a blind eye towards the truth in the spirit of "can't we all just get along?" (the Rodney King school of diplomacy), or it's happy with a socialist victory (let's hope that isn't the case), or else as I suspect is the case, they are simply out of touch with the reality of what is confronting them.


Obama is interested in improving the American image around the world, and the approach he is taking is similar to his laissez-faire attitude with Chicago-style corruption within the Democratic party. DON'T ROCK THE BOAT, BABY!


The people of Venezuela are being taken for a ride and it's the type of ride where the body gets dumped out of the trunk into the river or a shallow grave. But for the present administration, it seems that making nice with the Chavez junta is more important. There's no back bone there and more importantly, there's no payoff. What's the point in being friendly with this guy?


1. Obama, you are the new face of Satan as far as he's concerned. He's not likely to be friendly back anyway.

2. Even if you befriend him, what does it do for America? You want to reduce dependence on OPEC oil anyway, so why does he matter? [That's rhetorical, I'm pretty sure he doesn't matter to you much].

3. Befriending him is a short term gain at BEST, since after a while (perhaps after a decade or two more in power) he will be seen as the corrupt politician in America's pocket and the people of Venezuela will harbor no more good will towards America than they now have.

4. Being friends with socialists betrays the spirit of America - the spirit of rugged individualism that made America great.


Out of touch. Short sighted. Moving in the wrong direction. Example 34C of a growing list of shortcomings that prove the real Messiah was never up for election in 2008.