The Prophecy becomes reality Obiwan....

New Ledger:

"In Israel, however, conclusions have already been drawn, and the results are not particularly pretty for Obama. Put simply, he is the least popular American president in recent memory. The percentage of Israelis who consider him friendly to Israel has never been high, but it has dropped at various times into the single digits. Considering that the Israeli left polled 16% of the vote in the last elections, and the centrist Kadima party another 22% - higher, in fact, than Netanyahu’s Likud - Obama’s dismal numbers cannot be put down to simple partisanship. Israelis across the political spectrum are clearly convinced that Obama is indifferent and/or hostile to Israeli interests, sensibilities, and concerns."

The Ego has Landed...

Belmont Club:

"But it was to no avail. President Obama spoke fine words, but he didn’t bring enough goodies.

Yes, goodies. In the great wide world the fine portals open into courtyards that are not all they seem. Amid the fine words, gleaming crystal, white-coated waiters, the green baize tables, the Ivy League accents — the entire august setting — two basic modes of doing business remain: cash on the barrel or a gun to the head. That is how the players deal among themselves. The fine music and lofty words – is all for the consumption of audiences who think His Excellencies are really excellent or that David Letterman is funny when he tells a fifteen minute story about how he had sex with his employees and got blackmailed for it. At least Letterman knew enough to press charges. That wasn’t funny. But the fact that people were laughing was.

The reaction among the Olympic officials was telling. This machine translated page from a Danish newspaper says it all: “You can not just come with the train one day and try to affect everything, says Kai Holm and continues: – People have felt that it was a lack of respect for the Olympics and sport in general.” It’s amazing how much that sounds like Rod Blagojevich’s complaint that he was being dissed by the One when it came to who he would appoint to the US Senate."

Bend over, America....

Success No Matter What:

"In January, the administration's economic models warned that unemployment would hit 9 percent next year if its $787 billion 'stimulus' wasn't passed. Passing it would keep the jobless rate under 8 percent before it begins to fall.

Well, the packaged passed -- and unemployment in August rose to 9.7 percent.

Oops."

Roman Polanski, Hollywood and Justice ...

Not much else to say, is there?:

"If I were Roman Polanski, I wouldn't care to see Woody Allen's name at the head of a petition calling for my release from jail on statutory-rape charges."

Ellsworth Toohey strikes again....

The Brainy Bunch:

"There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs."

Ouch...

Charles Krauthammer:

"When France chides you for appeasement, you know you’re scraping bottom. Just how low we’ve sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration’s satisfaction when Russia’s president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the U.N., that “sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable.”"

Jonah Goldberg

Polanski Controversy Shouldn’t Be Controversial:

"And that’s the main reason I am grateful for this controversy. It is a dye marker, “lighting up” a whole archipelago of morally wretched people. With their time, their money, and their craft, these very people routinely lecture America about what is right and wrong. It’s good to know that at the most fundamental level, they have no idea what they’re talking about."

Thomas L. Friedman: The Worst Writer in the World:

The New Ledger:

"For the rest of us, Friedman provides a valuable lesson in what not to do. If you want to write serious political or social commentary, Friedman’s work is an excellent barometer: Do the opposite of everything he does and you may not get hired by the New York Times, but you will probably become a vaguely competent writer: Think clearly about things, make your sentences comprehensible, refrain from redundant anecdotes and stupid jokes, don’t treat your readers as though they are mentally deficient, remember that emotion is not a substitute for thought, don’t play to cliches and popular prejudices, attempt to retain some sense of objectivity, hold on to a measure of generosity toward other people, and write with a modicum of respect for the English language. This may not make for good writing, but it seriously impedes the possibility of bad writing. Everyone violates these rules quite often, and I have broken a few of them in this piece myself, but even the attempt to follow them will likely result in something which, if not necessarily popular, will be at least readable. It will not make you the best writer in the world, but you will be far from the worst. That position, in any case, has already been filled."

Thank you, Emily Latella....

Ah, Never Mind About That Guantanamo Thing:

"And in the meantime, Obama should cut the Guantanamo spiel from his speeches. It might only serve to remind everyone just how inexperienced, inept, and arrogant this administration has been."

Good one....

Notes From The Cuckoo's Nest...

The New Republic:

"The U.N. is a joke. If it weren't in New York no one would come. As an instrument of peace it fails every time. At its best, it is mostly charade, like Ban Ki-moon designating Bill Clinton as the organization's special envoy to Haiti. 'Special envoy,' my foot.

But Susan Rice seems to feel at home at the United Nations. 'Google' her and read any of her nonsense about the organization. Any of it. If you don't laugh you'll cry. Either way your response will be appropriate."

One can only hope he is right...

LocalNet Start Page:

"'There are a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,' he said.

Hosny's candidacy raised an outcry because of a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. While he later apologized and Israel said it had withdrawn its opposition to his candidacy, several prominent Jewish activists spoke out against him in the runup to the vote"

Quote of the Day...

Patterico:

"President Obama spoke today at the United Nations — because why should diplomats and world leaders miss out on what Americans get to hear every week?"

Surrendering soverignty everywhere...

The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak:

"It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism."

En (very) Loco Parentis....

Barack Obama, College Administrator:

"If you are confused by the first nine months of the Obama administration, take solace that there is at least a pattern. The president, you see, thinks America is a university and that he is our campus president. Keep that in mind, and almost everything else makes sense."

But it's OK as long as he's our guy....

The Art of Corruption:

"As an artist, I feel it incumbent upon myself to pause here to become violently ill. Never mind that the phone call may have broken several lobbying laws. Forget that the NEA’s Yosi Sergant is now proven to have lied when he denied the NEA’s role in initiating the call. Let’s not even concern ourselves with the fact that White House official Buffy Wicks directed the artists to channel their efforts through Serve.gov, a White House website with ties to the corrupt Acorn."

Perfectly obvious from the moment Oprah opened her big mouth....

President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth:

"The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it."

Ah, the Democrats.....!

What They Really Think:

"Promoting American weakness: it's not a bug, it's a feature"

To the manner born...

Belmont Club:

"...despite Nancy Pelosi’s fears, the real cause of increasing animosity isn’t heightened rhetoric: on the contrary, the heightened rhetoric may itself be the result an intensified competition for power. It’s a symptom and not the cause. My guess is that the effect of concentrating wealth and power in government hands has created a prize which is distorting civil relations, like some singularity which is warping the space around it and pulling everything into its maw. When the pot of gold is indivisibly concentrated in one place, a winner-take-all game ensues, or as Collier and Hoeffler put it, “a simple rational choice model of greed-rebellion” is enforced. The trash-talk follows."

The logical conclusion....

Mark Steyn:

"In a sense, the health-care debate and the foreign-policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions."