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."

When the Pot and the Kettle....

Christopher Hitchens:

"I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. 'Mr. Carter,' he said, 'quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had.'"

Quote of the Day...

The Agitator:

"Me, I think America would be a better place if more people were more rude to more politicians more often."

Not if I say so...

Don Surber:

"The excuses from James for ACORN’s criminal activities are pathetically liberal and predictable: “So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America.”

I see. Criminality is just “flaws” when it is a liberal group’s crimes."

Hopey/Changey....

Townhall:

"After all, why should we be surprised that a Chicago machine politician, many of whose former opponents suffered unlikely and devastating semi-legal setbacks, a man willing to play fast and loose with campaign finance laws, a man who will promise a room almost anything it wants to hear and then move along like some Elmer Gantry character - why should we be surprised that he embraces the anti-terror methods civil rights advocates have been decrying for years? No reason at all, is the answer. I won't be surprised to learn, decades from now, that things went much further under his watch than under Bush's, somewhere in whatever prison he sends really bad guys to after he gets around to closing Guantanemo. I'm not saying he'll enjoy it, I just think he plays much harder ball than people want to believe."

Quote of the Day:

Russ. Just Russ.:

"I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism."