Libya, Schmibya!

Like most people, I've followed the Libya situation, but I have a problem. I've resisted analyzing the situation, and that's what I do. So when I began to get emails asking why I had not written on Libya. my initial reaction was  . . . unprintable.

The reason I haven't written about Libya is that there are few facts, a lot of conjecture and an administration that can't explain what it's doing because it doesn't know. Before you accuse me of Obama Bashing, I will remind you that there have been so many contradictory explanations from the White House that there must be a super-secret "Confusion Machine" in the Oval Office programmed by the most convoluted, twisted minds in existence: lawyers.

Now the press is asking if there is (cue trumpet fanfare) an Obama Doctrine. This I can answer: No. There is no Obama Doctrine. If Vegas were giving odds on the existence of an Obama Doctrine, the odds in favor would be lower than the chances of seeing The Great Pumpkin pulled by harnessed West Texas Jackalopes hopping down New York's Fifth Avenue in the parade celebrating the selection of Joe Biden as the world's smartest man and most eloquent speaker. The only odds lower than the existence of an Obama Doctrine are the odds that Barry Bonds did not know he was a human steroid receptacle.

I can only imagine that the reason we are involved in Libya's future, is because the resistance was in the news - you know, like the resistance movements in Syria and Yemen and Bahrain and Egypt and Tunisia and ad darn-near infinitum. So why Libya and not the others may have more to do with Europe than with the United States's best interests.

President Obama has always looked far too much to Europe for approval and not nearly enough to his own constituents. So when the UN was pushed by the Arab League and, more importantly, by countries such as France and Italy to do something about Libya, he was at their beck and call.

I don't suppose the fact that Europe gets a significant portion of its oil from Libya ever crossed President Obama's mind. It's also not occurred to the people who accused the US of being in Iraq due to American oil interests, because they would then protest us being in Libya for European oil interests. Right? No, of course not.

So our President got UN approval to launch over a hundred cruise missiles into Libya, but he was too busy with the NCAA brackets to drop by Congress to see what they thought. US Representative Austin Scott (GA-8) gave President Obama his opinion anyway. Scott pointed out that Obama waited until Congress was adjourned before he deployed US forces in Libya. Scott does not believe the timing was an accident. Neither do I.

Anyway, I can't analyze Libya because there is no logic to the decision-making process. Or perhaps there is no decision-making process, either. There is a vacuum, or perhaps even a leadership black hole. So, my advice is that if you want an explanation of President Obama's action regarding Libya that you contact Professor Stephen Hawking. Good luck, Steve.

You Might Be President Obama If . . .

With apologies to fellow Georgian Jeff Foxworthy, who had absolutely nothing to do with this.

You might be President Obama . . .

If the ten year-old with the neighborhood lemonade stand has more business experience than you, you might be President Obama.

If you have more communists in your cabinet than Vladimir Putin, you might be President Obama.

If you try to look more macho by taking part in a military operation – run by France, you might be President Obama.

If the only campaign promise you have ever kept was to "make energy costs skyrocket", you might be President Obama.

If you got a Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing – and you’re following the same strategy to win a second, you might be President Obama.

If your OCD problem is that you compulsively bow to foreign thugs and dictators, you might be President Obama.

If you actually apologize for our behavior toward countries whose idea of a good time is to practice genocide on their own citizens, you might be President Obama.

If you’ve started a war and you don’t know why, you might be President Obama.

If you’ve never met privately with some of your own cabinet members, but average seeing your golf pro once a week, you might be President Obama.

If you’ve ever put Joe Biden in charge of anything bigger than setting up a Parcheesi board, you might be President Obama.

If your idea of fixing the economy is to go shopping – in another country, you might be President Obama.

Of course, more will probably be added. So many gaffes, so little time.

14 Hours, 29 Minutes, 49 Seconds Of Democrat Sacrifice

Want to see a pale, frightened Democrat run screaming from a room? Forget about Dracula, tsunamis and rabid divorce attorneys. Just mention tax cuts or spending cuts or program cuts. That’s all you have to do. Honest.

In February alone, the US had a deficit of $222.5 billion. To put things in perspective, the Democrats could only suggest $4.8 billion in tax cuts for the entire year. If you do the math, these cuts would have balanced federal spending in February for just 14 hours, 29 minutes and 49 seconds. Let’s be clear, this is only the difference it would take to make up for the deficit, not actually pay for anything.

Even this miniscule spending reduction sent Democrats such as John Kerry (People’s Republic of Massachusetts) into a frenzy. If Kerry was a Southerner (perish the thought), then we would have said that he’d had a “hissy fit”.

Meanwhile other Democrats are saying that the only way to begin balancing the budget is to immediately attack entitlement spending. This is the same tactic the Left uses at the local level when it always suggests the most popular programs be reduced first: police, fire protection, garbage collection, etc. At the national level, the reductions that frighten the most people are entitlements. Same old Democrats, same old masculine bovine fecal material, different government level.

The time has come when it is no longer sufficient to laugh at the left’s demagoguery and wonder why anyone would elect these intellectually weak, pandering politicos. We must make the federal government more responsive and responsible. The longer we wait to take action, then the more severe the action and the consequences will be when we have no choice but to act. It’s our government and it must be brought to heel.

In the meantime, I suppose we should thank the liberals in the Congress for taking our debt crisis seriously enough to find those 14 hours, 29 minutes and 49 seconds of savings. What a laudatory sacrifice! Perhaps if the Democrat majority had actually passed a budget last year then more spending reductions could have been found. By the way, I hope you don’t believe that, because I certainly don’t.

Campaign 2012: Learning From the Mistake that was John McCain’s ’08 Nomination

There are a lot of villains to blame in the GOP 2008 Meltdown that was known as the John McCain campaign. Let’s take a look at a few, so that perhaps we can avoid them. It's time to check out the villainous characters that populated the 2008 effort and see if we can avoid them in 2012.

Villain the First: The Republican Party. Yes, we Republicans need look no farther than the mirror for our first candidate. Who in the world says that it’s anyone’s “turn” to be the nominee? Did we forget Bob Dole’s campaign? It was Dole’s “turn,” too. There were other problems, too, with that campaign. Bob Dole: patriot, war veteran, good and decent man; was the nominee only because he had stood in line the longest. No one, and I truly believe this included Bob Dole, thought that he could win back in 1996.

The GOP, which hates non-merit based advancement, practices it on a regular basis with its presidential nominees. John McCain didn't earn the 2008 GOP nomination, it was handed to him on a silver platter of obligation.

Why not nominate the person who is most qualified or who captures the public’s imagination? Or both? John McCain was neither of those things just as he is not a conservative.

Villain the Second: The Media. Yeah, we conservatives have a real hate/hate relationship with the mainstream media. McCain was the absolute darling of the media. They called him “independent” and “a real maverick” in loving, approving voices. Then came the general election and suddenly McCain was “old” and “pandering to the right”. What happened?

In a common phrase, “liberal bias” happened. McCain was the most left-leaning of any GOP candidate who had a chance to win the Republican nomination. When this was the case, McCain was a hero. When he was opposed by the much more liberal Barack Obama, McCain wasn’t just yesterday’s news; he was yesterday’s news used as a fish-wrapper.

McCain was stunned by this turn of events, but not as stunned as Hillary Clinton was when it happened to her. Clinton had been the media’s favorite person for a decade – and she continued to be in the ’08 Presidential campaign - until the media decided that the more liberal Obama had an opportunity to win. When that happened, the media was not only “not friendly” to Mrs. Clinton, they were downright unfriendly.

There isn’t anything we’ll be able to do about the media in ’12, but we can at least recognize it for what it is. If the media is favorable toward a GOP candidate in the primary, do not assume it will continue – and certainly do not favor a candidate because the media does so.

Villain the Third: The States. McCain managed to pick up a lot of momentum – and quite a few delegates – in states that do not require voter registration by party. This allowed a lot of independents and moderate Democrats to vote in the GOP Presidential Preference primaries. Each of their votes counts exactly the same as a dyed-in-the-wool Republican that works hard to promote Republican ideals every year. It’s time to end open primaries.

Villain the Fourth: Back to the mirror, folks. It’s time to nominate a small-government, principled conservative. I’m not to the point where I would even begin throwing out names, but there are a few of them. We know what we believe. Now is the time to nominate a person who can articulate those beliefs because he or she understands them – not because some guy in a suit said, “Here, try this line and see if it works.”

We can do this, but it will take some planning and more than that, it will require us to be honest with ourselves and do what’s right, not what a “political expert” on television says we should do.