Obama Derangement

Remember the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome” which perfectly captured the hateful invective directed at the former president? Many conservatives roundly condemned “BDS,” as they should have. Like him or not, the president tried hard to serve and protect America; he did not deserve to be cheap- shotted all day long by crazy left-wing loons.

But now the proverbial shoe is on the other foot, and there is “ODS” (Obama Derangement Syndrome) in play. The dictionary defines “derangement” as a form of insanity. And, after listening to some partisans evaluate Barack Obama’s first one hundred days in office, I have to say there is some madness in the air.

On my TV program the other night, I graded President Obama on his performance thus far. I gave him a “B” for domestic policy, largely because the stock market has stabilized and the recession-panic mood is receding a bit. I then awarded Mr. Obama a “C” in the foreign policy category, because he has little to show for his public criticism of America. The Obama people will tell you that the President “planted a seed” while speaking overseas, but his spouting off about America’s ills seemed weak to me.

Finally, I gave the President a “C+” for leadership. While his job approval poll ratings remain high, his waffling about the interrogation deal did not demonstrate a strong and forward- looking point-of-view, to say the least.

Well, after that on-the-air report card, I received quite a few dissenting letters. One guy in Arizona said he was glad I wasn’t actually teaching, because I’d be the new Ward Churchill. Another man in Denver said I had lost my mind because Obama deserved “F’s” across the board. Still another guy opined that the President had accomplished nothing and that I should be ashamed.

So, let me ask you, is ODS the same as BDS? I think it is.

Fairness is a hallmark of America. Our legal system, with its appeals process and litany of rights for the accused, is a great example of that. Greatness of any kind cannot be achieved without being fair. Tyrants may rule for a time, but they are never great.

Holding sincere opinions is also an honorable trait. There are fair-minded Americans who simply do not believe President Obama’s liberal view of the world is good for the country. Fine, no problem with that. But everything the man does is not awful, and to assign him sinister motives is blatantly unfair—the same kind of inequity we saw heaped upon President Bush.

President Obama may turn out to be a disaster or he may rise to greatness. At this point, nobody knows what will happen. That is the great thing about democracy and about capitalism. When done right, those things give people a fair chance to succeed and there’s nothing deranged about it.

Computing America

Anyone who spends time around young children or teenagers knows that high tech has changed everything in toyland. Today, the babes aren’t running from a mean old landlord named Barnaby, they are dressed provocatively doing X-rated stunts all over cyberspace. And if adults are not vigilant, kids can grow up real fast.

But even if parents closely monitor what their children see on the Internet, the lives of younger Americans are changing drastically because of machines. It used to be that you’d see kids playing sports in the streets and on the playgrounds. I don’t see too much of that anymore. Instead, many kids are playing sports games on the net, where they can experience the thrill of victory without getting sweaty or bloody. They are playing a game, not the game.

Growing up on Long Island, sports literally saved me. In my neighborhood, there were the jocks and the hoods. I had friends in both camps. The hoods hung around the shopping center smoking cigarettes, and in the late 1960s, doing dope. I found that kind of stuff boring and hit the ball fields.

Many of the hoods bottomed out; some even died. Most of the jocks became prosperous. Sporting competitions build discipline and perseverance. Smoking and doing dope builds nothing. I was lucky to have made the right choice.

But the fantasy world the Internet can provide is almost like a narcotic. People can quite literally build their own worlds without ever leaving the house. Highly motivated people still venture out to conquer the world, but many folks are retreating into an artificial world which is just a click away.

I believe the long-term ramifications of cyberspace are enormous for the USA and for the world. You can see it in the current recession. Many folks are stunned when they lose their jobs. They simply don’t know what to do. A few days ago, a fired worker in Los Angeles murdered his wife and five kids before killing himself. Instead of starting over, the guy flipped out.

Life is hard. The Greatest Generation, shaped by the Depression and World War II, understood that very well. Baby boomers who were drafted into the Vietnam War quickly learned that as well. But now, kids and many adults are becoming hypnotized by a technological world that requires little accountability and massive escape possibilities.

Some old-timers tell me they fear for America, that is has become a place of individual pursuits and selfish short-term desires. They say there is little sense of patriotism or civic responsibility anymore.

That fear is worth thinking about as machines become more and more vital to our lives—because succeeding in the real world requires a lot more skill and determination than flipping a switch.

Kids Gone Wild

These are dark days for traditional Americans-folks who believe that the Judeo-Christian principles of right and wrong should be considered when making public policy. The other day, former “Focus on the Family” chief Dr. James Dobson actually told his crew that the culture war was being lost in America. And it is hard to argue with Dobson’s opinion.

All over the USA, secular-progressives are on the move, promoting gay marriage, legalized drugs, unfettered abortion, and attacking almost all judgments on personal behavior. And nowhere is the movement more intense than in the nation’s most liberal state: Vermont.

The legislature in the Green Mountain State recently voted to legalize gay marriage, overriding the veto of Governor Jim Douglas. Vermont is the first state to actually legislate in favor of homosexual nuptials, as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa all had gay marriage imposed on the citizenry by judges. It is worth noting that Vermont is one of the few states that voted down Jessica’s Law, the tough mandatory prison sentence legislation against child sexual predators. An investigation into Vermont’s criminal justice apparatus reveals the state embraces “restorative justice,” whereby criminals often receive “holistic” treatment as part of their sentence for even heinous crimes like child rape. The goal is not so much to punish the offender, but to “restore” him or her to their rightful place in society. That is a secular-progressive hallmark.

While Vermont is coddling child predators, it is also sending a message to kids: Hey, you can do pretty much what you want. Somewhat incredibly, the Vermont senate has passed a bill decriminalizing consensual “sexting.” That is the process by which children send sexual pictures of themselves to other children using cell phones or computers. The proposed Vermont law says that 13- to 18-year-olds will be allowed to do that, but not distribute the photos to more than one person or an adult.

Supporters of the sexting law say it’s necessary so that teenagers will not be prosecuted as sexual offenders and have their lives ruined. There is some validity to that, as dopey kids do dopey things. However, the sane solution would be to categorize sexting as a misdemeanor breach of the peace, thus sending a message that it is unacceptable for kids to send other kids sexual images.

But secular-progressives are loathe to make that judgment. Remember, these are the same people who believe a girl has the right to an abortion without telling her parents. So if a kid can undergo a major life altering operation (especially for the fetus), why should it be a big deal to do a little sexting?

With a liberal federal government and media, there is little opposition being voiced to what is happening in Vermont and other secular-progressive enclaves. Culture war issues have been forced to the back room by the awful economy, and the S- P’s are taking full advantage. If American children are legally allowed to send explicit pictures of themselves to other kids, then say goodbye to traditional boundaries of behavior.

The slippery slope is here.

The Collapse of the Left-Wing Press

There is much irony in the fact that while liberals have won power in Washington big time, the left-wing media is collapsing all over the place. In the past couple of weeks, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the mother of all liberal publications, theNew York Times, all have issued SOS announcements.

The Seattle paper will cease publication in March unless a buyer is found. Even though it can’t pay its bills, the Post- Intelligencer should get into the left wing hall of fame after its publisher told the FBI to buzz off when the agency asked for media help in locating two possible terror suspects.

The Minneapolis paper, called the “Red Star” by some in Minnesota, has filed for bankruptcy after its earnings dropped more than 50% in one year. That, despite the Presidential vote and a vicious election between Senator Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

As for the New York Times, it is Twilight Zone time. The paper is already trying to use equity from its Manhattan office building to pay debts and now has borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu. And get this—the Times is paying old Carlos an astounding 14% interest rate! What, was Tony Soprano not available? Does the description “loan shark” mean anything to the ideologues running the Times? I mean, the prime lending rate in America is 3.25%, and these guys are paying Carlos Slim 14%! Wow.

On the TV front, the über-liberal, Bush-hating MSNBC network ranked #31 in total day ratings for the first two weeks of January. I think that’s right behind the “Roller Derby Channel.” General Electric, which owns NBC, has taken a sharp turn to the left in its corporate philosophy, while at the same time it watched its stock price decline from about 50 dollars a share to around $13. The fact that CEO Jeffrey Immelt still has his job ranks up there with the miracle of the US Airways water landing.

So, why is the liberal media taking a pounding when the left now controls Congress and the Oval Office? It may be because of the economy. After the recession blindsided the folks last fall, anger filled the air. Why weren’t we warned that the finance industry was awash in bad housing loans? President Bush and Senator John McCain had no answer. So the folks voted for the Democrats.

But that doesn’t mean that the American people suddenly became liberals over night. In fact, some folks became even more conservative with their spending and lifestyles. The images of left-wing media people gloating over the failure of the Bush administration did not cheer many people up. In fact, I believe it teed a lot them off.

Despite the power shift in Washington, America remains a traditional country that largely rejects big government and radical social change. The former hippies running the crazy left media will never get that. They think most Americans want gay marriage, political correctness and unfettered abortion. They think everyday folks think ponytails and pierced ears on old guys are cool.

Well, these Abbie Hoffman wannabes are sadly out of touch… and, soon, may be out of work.

Bush Exits

Partisan blather aside, let’s take a no spin look at President Bush’s two biggest legacy items: The terror war and the economy.

Mr. Bush leaves office with a 34% approval rating, according to a recent Gallup poll. That ties him with Jimmy Carter’s approval rating when he left office in 1981—not exactly a place you want to be. However, the war on terror issue is still being defined and will likely help Bush when history is written, down the line.

Immediately after the attack on 9/11, the Muslim jihadists had a big wind at their backs. We saw TV pictures of Muslims dancing in the streets as the great Satan America was humbled by al-Qaeda. Almost instantly, the invincibility of the United States was challenged and the physical safety of Americans was at risk. It was very possible that further attacks were close.

Moving quickly, the Bush administration reorganized the FBI into a terror-fighting organization and toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, disrupting al-Qaeda’s command and control. Those successful tactics blunted a number of active terror plots and resulted in the capture of a number of al-Qaeda big shots, all of whom broke under coerced interrogation. The information they gave up allowed the Bush administration to further damage the terrorist infrastructure. Then came Iraq, an operation designed to cleanse the Muslim world of the huge terrorist enabler Saddam Hussein. The price of that war is still being debated, but what is not disputed by honest people is that the al-Qaeda foot soldiers that invaded Iraq hoping to defeat the U.S. military were eventually decimated. The price for America in Iraq has been enormous, but al-Qaeda has also paid big.

Today, the terror threat still exists, but it is no longer centralized and has lost most of its momentum. In short, the United States is winning the shooting war and President Bush should get credit for that.

On the economic front, however, the picture is different. The dramatic rise in oil prices last spring was artificially driven by greedy speculators, some of whom worked out of some brokerage houses like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. The oil company chieftains quickly realized they could make billions raising their prices to reflect the upward price speculation and did so with gusto. Thus, millions of consumer dollars were diverted to gas bills instead of other obligations. That lit the fuse of the recession.

At the same time, banks were making risky home loans to unqualified consumers. The banks then sold many of those loans to quick-buck artists at places like Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. When consumers began to default because money became tight, panic ensued and the recession roared in.

So, where was President Bush while all this was happening? He continued to put forth that the economy was fundamentally strong when it was not. That is on the President. If he was misled by his economic advisors, he should have said so. But Mr. Bush is leaving office with no credible explanation for the collapse.

The Democrat-controlled congress also stood by and did nothing to protect the folks. Last July, Congressman Barney Frank, chairman of the House finance committee, told the world that Fannie May and Freddie Mac were “in good shape going forward.”

A few weeks later, those mortgage entities collapsed. Frank is now blaming the Republicans, but he is being flat-out dishonest in not taking any responsibility.

Like a sports team that loses big, the head coach is the main guy. After Iraq and the wobbling economy, the folks lost confidence in President Bush, and Barack Obama capitalized on that.

But the truth is that the Bush administration did very well protecting us against the terror killers—not so well protecting us against Wall Street greed-heads.