For a few days last week, the leftist media (redundant, I know) tried really hard to make a “spirited” discussion between Governor Jan Brewer (R-Arizona) and President Obama (D-Chicago) into a “something.” Luckily, they’ve cried wolf (read: racist) so many times that most people just roll their eyes, pat the little media types on the head, and tell them to walk it off. There’s no crying in politics. Stop being wusses.

via The Media Research Council

After failing to fan the racial flames again, the lefty media and blogosphere (the echo-chamber) then went with the “it was disrespectful!” angle. Apparently, it is disrespectful to point your finger at the President. Now, assuming Brewer was pointing/wagging her finger at Obama, and she was doing so in a scolding manner – let’s go ahead and ignore that the infamous photo above shows Brewer pointing up at the sky, shall we? – how is it disrespectful?

This is the United States of America. Sure, winning office grants you a certain level of respect, but are we really going to try and score political points when someone uses their hands in an expressive manner? She pointed/wagged her finger; she didn’t flip him the bird. What kind of politically correct nonsense is the media trying to pull here?

One could argue that on day one of his Presidency, Obama – or his sycophants in the media, to be more specific – commanded a certain level of respect. But there’s a history now, isn’t there? In Brewer’s case, Obama implied the now-infamous illegal immigration law she signed was racist. His Attorney General panned the law before he had ever read it. Isn’t that disrespectful to Brewer in her capacity as Governor? Where was the media’s outrage over this disrespectful behavior? There was none. (more…)

As a communications professional, my assessment of the Obama Administration’s communications strategy is that it may be the most inept performance I have ever seen of any political regime.

Crisis communications is not a silver bullet.  Some thing simply cannot be repaired.  The whole point of communications in general, however, is that the job should never be challenging if the entity the communicator works for doesn’t provide fodder for the opposition.

The Obama Administration has repeatedly handed its opposition ammunition — not 9mm bullets, but everything from Stinger missiles to bunker-busters.  The result is the appearance, to this citizen, of a White House on the verge of panic.  I’m not the only one.  When legendary far-left blabbermouth James Carville tells the White House it’s time to panic, it’s time to panic (That’s no diss on Mr. Carville.  I love watching him.).

Almost none of this has to do with the truth or facts of any given situation.  It has to do with how it all appears.  Generally, it makes Mr. Obama appear like an amateur politician.

It Started Out So Well!

The Obama campaign had it made in 2008.  The GOP had put up the Grumpy Old Troll against a PR juggernaut — the first viable Black presidential candidate.  Young and slick vs. old and creaky.  The backlash against the Bush presidency had peaked — people were tired of the war in Iraq, gasoline had hit $4, and the mainstream media so controlled the political narrative that it would’ve taken a literal disaster to push the Obama campaign off-message.  Not only did the GOP face an uphill battle anyway, but now they were facing a wave of messaging that was hard to ignore: hope and change.  So powerful was this message that, despite it and the candidate it spoke for being utterly lacking in substance, it swayed enough of the electorate to create an historic moment for America.  The country had elected a God.  I don’t need to tell you how this photo comes off:

(more…)

An Interview with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama

May 1, 2011

MAX RESNIK:  Welcome President and Mrs. Obama.  Sir, I assume you agreed to appear on Shalom TV because polls show your support among Jews cratering?

OBAMA:  Correct, Max.  Since Election Night 2008, my approval rating in the Jewish community is down from 80% to 40%.  As I said to my aides, oi vey.

RESNIK:  Mr. President, short of declaring without reservation that you believe Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, how can you possibly turn those numbers around before November 2012?

OBAMA:  I want Jews to start paying closer attention, Max.  Are your viewers aware Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan recently called me “the first Jewish President”?  Or Joe Biden saying “I am a Zionist” on this very network in 2007?  How about yesterday, when I ruled out a freeze on Jewish construction on Manhattan’s Upper East Side?  And, and . . . .

MICHELLE:  Go ahead . . . tell him.

OBAMA:  Well, you heard it here first, Max:  I’ve changed my named to Barach [Baracchhk]  Obauma and converted to Judaism.

RESNIK:  Whoa.

MICHELLE: My idea, Max.  Now we can play both the race and anti-Semite cards.

RESNIK:  But . . . conversion rituals may take anywhere from six months to a year.  You live in a bubble, Mr. President.  When did you do this?

OBAUMA:  April 6.  I was in New York talking education at an event with Al Sharpton.  Only it wasn’t me.  It was Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen filling in for me. (more…)

As he sits behind bars awaiting trial, Jared Loughner is undoubtedly relishing every moment of the ruckus that he managed to stir up with his deadly rampage in Tucson. In addition to murdering six innocent human beings and wounding more than a dozen others in an act of sheer evil, the deranged gunman has set off a media and political frenzy that refuses to abate.

By various accounts, this is precisely what Loughner was hoping for. As his close friend Bryce Tierney told Mother Jones, “I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what’s happening.” Ironically enough, then, many of those now engaged in the shameless finger-pointing are inadvertently advancing the goals of the madman, by fulfilling his desire to create an environment of mayhem in society.

Deploying the most acerbic members of its verbal firing squads, the left has launched volley after volley of vitriol in recent days in an effort to score some political points and paint conservatives as extremists. But in so doing, they are merely extending the damage inflicted by Loughner into the sphere of public discourse, thereby undermining the very same foundations of civilization that the gunman himself was targeting. (more…)

First the unremarkable, banal, veritably quotidian spectacle of Israel’s moderate partner in peace glorifying mass murderers. Palestinian President Abbas publicly mourned the death of Munich massacre mastermind Abu Daoud. He personally honored the three terrorists who murdered Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai, an Israeli father of seven. He repeatedly celebrated Dalal Mughrabi, who murdered 13 Israeli schoolchildren and 25 other Israeli civilians. He glorifies “resistance” and incites rioting. He peddles anti-Jewish organ theft libels and even sets up formal committees to investigate those bigoted fantasies.

The Israelis have complained to the White House about Abbas’s incitement, but these things are apparently really complicated. For instance, maybe this video was done on a greenscreen, as opposed to being a recording of an Abbas-sponsored high school graduation celebrating mass murderer. You never know:

Now the New York Times editorial from Tuesday. The NYT board engaged in a little bit of diplomatic freelancing, hoping to cajole Abbas into embracing direct peace talks. Not so much to actually make peace, of course, as much as to expose Netanyahu as the barrier to Middle East stability: (more…)

DAVID GREGORY:  Our guest today on Meet the Press, CIA Director Leon Panetta.  Welcome, sir.

PANETTA:  Good Morning, Tim.  I heard you’d passed away. Glad you’re back.

GREGORY:  Uh, thanks.  How do you see the Afghan struggle playing out?

PANETTA:  Well, my wife insists on a wall covering, but I prefer a rug, say a Turkestan Kunduz in the Persian style.  We may need a mediator.

GREGORY:  Sir, would you embed journalists in CIA special ops teams?

PANETTA:  I resent that question, Tim.  I’m a happily married man.

GREGORY:  Sorry.  Do you employ Muslims at Langley, sir?

PANETTA:  I do, Tim.  I chose muslin with cheery Wide Ruffles® for my office windows.  I also ordered muslin backdrops for videographic contrast in our interrogation rooms.

GREGORY:  The ”ticking time bomb” scenario, sir. You capture a terrorist after he’s hidden a nuke in New York.  Now what? (more…)

Barack Obama has found yet another way to express his special brand of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel – while the mainstream media looks the other way. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday dropped out of Obama’s 47-nation nuclear security summit, after discovering that Israel was going to be pressured there to sign on to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which would drastically weaken Israel’s defenses.

And you won’t find it in the American press, but the Israeli publication NRG/Maariv reported Wednesday that employees of Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor are now being denied entry into the United States. Do they have criminal records? Terrorist connections? Do they beat, murder and rape their people marching for freedom, as does Iran, a terrorist state Obama is effectively helping go nuclear?

No. These Jewish scientists and plant workers want to come to America to study nuclear engineering, chemistry and physics. But Obama won’t let them in, just because they work in a nuclear plant in the Jewish homeland. (more…)

Of all the subversive acts ever in the history of the United States of America, and even during this post-American Administration, this one is the killer: Barack Obama plans to remove all discussion of Islam and jihad from the central document of our national security strategy. Under Bush, the National Security Strategy document declared:

The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.

Now it won’t say anything about “militant Islamic radicalism” at all.

According to the Associated Press, Obama is trying to “change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.” Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer says that this shift “reflects Obama’s core assumption that the jihad against the United States is our fault, and can be quelled by our overtures of good will to the Islamic world.” In other words, if we would just be nice to Muslim countries and talk to them about health care and education instead of fighting against jihad terrorism, they will stop hating us. Spencer adds: (more…)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in the U.S. and met with Barack Obama in the White House, but you won’t find any photos of Netanyahu with Obama on the wire services. There aren’t any. Obama wouldn’t allow it. Politico reported:

But the meetings were shrouded in unusual secrecy, in part because U.S. officials, who just ten days earlier called the surprise announcement of new housing in East Jerusalem an ‘insult’ and an ‘affront,’ made sure to reward Netanyahu with a series of small snubs: There were no photographs released from the meeting, and no briefing for the press.

He bows to the Saudi king, he shakes hands warmly with his “amigo” Chavez, but he won’t be seen with the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East, and our only reliable ally there.

And this comes after he has put unprecedented strain on the U.S./Israel alliance by pressuring Israel for allowing Jews to build homes on Jewish land, and blaming Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians Muslims.

Obama is not a passive, weak or naive player in the Muslim/Jewish conflict. He was wet-nursed on Jew-hatred. He grew up in a Muslim country and studied the Koran. He knows what is prescribed for the Jews in Islam. He knows that the Koran says that the Jews are the Muslims’ worst enemies (5:82) and that “ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found” (3:112). (more…)