Brutally Honest

Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime and cross-posted at The Borg Perspective.

Sound familiar? That axiom of leadership has been around for ages that I know of. It is a principle that was or should have been learned by everyone with a military background IMO. Especially those who have risen to the level of a commander, or one's vying for the job of commander in chief.

But alas, as much as I would like to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, I and many others are getting a bit bone weary of watching John McCain shoot himself in the foot and then quickly topple to the ground once again. The economy of the past two weeks, has presented the golden opportunity for John McCain to step out and step up front as the problem solver and leader that he has desired himself to be portrayed as. But at every turn and at every opportunity, John McCain has shirked both the responsibility and the opportunity to become the leader that this country is looking for.

All Americans aren't stupid and many Americans recognize a real leader when they see one, regardless of the portrayal of media, or the color commentaries of the media in their attempt to sell us  their guy. But McCain just doesn't seem to get it. He isn't leading. He had that opportunity last week when he supposedly canceled his campaign to return to Washington to forge a solution to the banking crisis. But what did he do? Or more importantly, what did he accomplish? Nada, zip, zilch nothing. Nothing other than a few photo snaps of him sitting at the far end of the table with the president with that patented smirk on his face, while absolutely nothing was accomplished.

Aside from that smile, nothing was accomplished that I could see. No leadership and not even any following of the leads of other lesser players by McCain or anyone else. Just a pointless side trip prior to the debate that accomplished nothing, short of making John McCain look stupid. Barack Obama was there too, but he was invited by the president.

Then last Friday at the first presidential debate, once again John McCain had the opportunity handed to him to be a leader and th=o set the standard. Everyone saw the opportunity and knew that he could step forward and hammer Obama on his tax an spend platform. There is absolutely no defense for Obama or the democrats on that platform of tax and spend now. Everyone but john McCain saw the opportunity and many spoke of it before the debates. But John McCain just stood there and let the "coup degra" moment of this campaign just float right on by him. Meanwhile, America was treated once again to the dog eared cliche that "I didn't win Miss Congeniality" in the senate again last year. Ha Ha Ha! LOL!!!! Excuse me while I spit coffee all over myself and wet my pants from the stupendous and captivating humor of a man who is failing faster than a spent Roman candle and obviously doesn't have the sense enough to know it.

What part of this don't you get John? The part about lead? The part about follow? Or the part about get the hell out of the way for someone who can? You are demonstrating absolutely nothing in the form of leadership to the American people and your dog eared references to having always been a maverick are meaningless in the absence of meaningful action (now!). Especially any identifiable action in the face of the present financial crisis that is gripping this country and everyone including you seems to be hypnotized by.

John? You are reminding me of that old mule cart on the bridge blocking the advance of the entire 3rd Army during WWII scene in the movie Patton. When George Patton recognizes the problem? That his entire army was stalled and exposed on the roadway to enemy fire? He immediately drives to the front of the column, surveys the problem, promptly pulls his pistol from his belt and shoots both mules in the head. Then orders their carcasses thrown over the side of the bridge while the column proceeds.

That is what is called "action" John. Right, wrong or indifferent, the people will follow a leader. Even one who is brash and from time to time insults their sensibilities with raw actions. Just as long as they are assured that his heart is in the right place and they know that he would rather speed happily on the highway to hell, having made the wrong turn at the fork in the road, than sit idly by and wait for fate to catch up to him. At least he found himself hell bent on the path that he chose and the decision made John and that is a start. Albeit wrong, but at least a start  At least you can tell where the leader's head and his heart are at in moments like that. And that they aren't up his back side or being parsed and played against perceptions in the media by campaign staff that would rather lose a campaign than make a decision.

So take it easy John. Someone will take care of all this for you in a little while and don't worry. It won't be your opponent. He is busy doing what he does best right now. He is sizing up the factors at play and consulting with his handlers and and planning his move of being present while being absent, while making you look like a damn fool in the process. While the media makes him look good doing nothing which is what they seem to do best of late.

So relax John and enjoy the traffic jam of crisis politics and principled dilemma. Maybe if you are lucky? Someone will be along in a while to pull their pistol on this FUBAR, shoot it in the head and throw it over the bridge. So that the rest of us can proceed on to either glorious victory or hell in a hand basket which ever it may become. But somehow? I don't see that person leading that parade will be you John. And I'd rather like to think of my self as being led on the merry way to hell in a hand basket, than simply sitting idly by and waiting for someone to put that bullet to my head.

Lying, conniving, deceitful, scheming, dishonest, fraudulent, insidious, double-dealing Speaker of the House (UPDATED)

There has never been a Speaker as partisan as this one. Never. She ought to be booted out on her ass faster than you can say be gone. Much faster.

UPDATE: Can I get an amen?

Yesterday was a time for statesmanship and gravitas, qualities that are critical in the individual who is only a few degrees away from the presidency, and who is vested with representing the entire body of the House of Representatives. In our two party system, there is no way to leave partisan politics out of the Speaker's role, but Pelosi acts more like a House majority or minority leader, or a whip - or even like the DNC Chair - than she does like the great Speakers of yore, like Sam Rayburn and Tip O'Neill.

Certainly those guys acted as members of their own parties, But Democrat O'Neill and Republican Ronald Reagan, for example, had an underlying respect for one another, and were cordial "after 5pm," as Reagan once said. This meant that when necessary, the two parties could reach compromise in the House with respect for the work they needed to get done. I sort of doubt that there is a Republican on the planet who would enjoy sharing a beer with Nancy Pelosi. Heck, there probably aren't even many Democrats who would consider that much of a good time.

It demeans the role of Speaker for Pelosi to use her position to take every possible opportunity to aggressively bash the GOP, no matter how inappropriate the setting or context. And I say this as a voter who likely agrees with Pelosi on specific policy issues 95% of the time.

If Americans really want change in Washington, and improvement in the  mean-spirited and debilitating partisan malaise that seems to have settled over our Congress, then we need to start with working to get rid of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Our House of Representatives - and we - deserve better.

What might you do with $700 billion?

Wizbang has run the numbers:

If the Treasury simply took the $700 Billion and started paying off taxpayer mortgages, they could pay off every mortgage in the country worth less than $75,000... Or put another way, $700 Billion could pay off well over half of all outstanding first mortgages in the entire country.

Do you really think they need this much money?

So I say we just take the cash and pay off half the mortgages out there and see what that does to the credit market and the economy. Are ya with me?

The left has a great argument here, one that's tough to counter given the government (and President Bush's) penchant to simply cut loose $700 billion.

I'm inclined to think that we need to get rid of every member of Congress... just start from scratch.   I realize that's hard given that some fought off the bailout, at least for now.

But still.  I say start from scratch.

It can't get much worse.

Thomas Sowell: "The roots of this problem go back many years"

Townhall.com:

Nothing could more painfully demonstrate what is wrong with Congress than the current financial crisis.

Among the Congressional "leaders" invited to the White House to devise a bailout "solution" are the very people who have for years created the risks that have now come home to roost.

Five years ago, Barney Frank vouched for the "soundness" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and said "I do not see" any "possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury."

Moreover, he said that the federal government has "probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing."

Earlier this year, Senator Christopher Dodd praised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for "riding to the rescue" when other financial institutions were cutting back on mortgage loans. He too said that they "need to do more" to help subprime borrowers get better loans.

In other words, Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default.

The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously.

But the magic words "affordable housing" and the ugly word "redlining" led to politicians directing where loans and investments should go, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and various other coercions and threats.

The roots of this problem go back many years, but since the crisis to which all this led happened on George W. Bush's watch, that is enough for those who think in terms of talking points, without wanting to be confused by the facts.

In reality, President Bush tried unsuccessfully, years ago, to get Congress to create some regulatory agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Read it all.  Pass it on.

"It didn't have to happen"

H/T Media Mythbusters.

Barack Obama: Indoctrinating the young

That should send shivers up your spine.

Alcee Hastings apologizes for Palin comments...

... only to basically reiterate the same sentiments that got him in trouble moments later:

An African-American congressman from Florida is apologizing for his comment that black and Jewish voters should not support Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin because "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks."

"I regret the comments I made last Tuesday that were not smart and certainly not relevant to hunters or sportsmen," Rep. Alcee Hastings said in a statement issued Monday.

Last week, at a panel on the shared agenda of Jewish and African-American Democrats during the annual conference of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Hastings told attendees what he intended to tell his Jewish constituents about the importance of supporting Sen. Obama in November's presidential election. "If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," Hastings said last week. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through," he added

The comments elicited a swift response from the Republican Jewish Coalition. In a statement issued last week, Matt Brooks, the group's Executive Director, said Hastings "stooped to the worst kind of divisive politics."

"There should be no place in our country for this sort of political discourse. We can constructively disagree on the issues without denigrating others," added Brooks.

In his statement Monday, Hastings said he still backed the sentiment behind his initial remarks. "The point I made, and will continue to make, is that the policies and priorities of a McCain-Palin administration would be anathema to most African Americans and Jews," he said in his statement. "I regret that I was not clearer and apologize to Governor Palin, my host where I was speaking, and those who my comments may have offended."

If you believe this apology to be sincere, then you believe Al Gore to be the same... or Michael Moore...

Or...

Barack Obama.

Are you really this stupid?

 

"We erred in our judgment"

Via Joe in the comments comes a mea culpa from the CBC:

More than 300 people have taken the trouble this month to complain to the CBC ombudsman about a column we ran on CBCNews.ca about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Sept. 5.

The column, by award-winning freelance writer Heather Mallick, was also pilloried by The National Post in Canada and by Fox News in the U.S. Despite its age — it is three weeks old, several lifetimes in web years — this posting remains a subject of fascination in the blogosphere.

Vince Carlin, the CBC ombudsman, has now issued his assessment of the Mallick column. He doesn't fault her for riling readers by either the caustic nature of her tone or the polarizing nature of her opinion.

But he objects that many of her most savage assertions lack a basis in fact. And he is certainly correct.

Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective. It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan.

And because it is all those things, this column should not have appeared on the CBCNews.ca site.

...

As a public broadcaster we have an added responsibility to provide an array of opinions and voices to complement our journalism. But we must do so carefully. And you should be able to trust us to provide you with work that's based on solid reporting and free from the passionate excesses of partisanship.

We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear. We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack. It's a fine line.

Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages.

In this, Carlin is also correct.

This, too, is being immediately addressed. CBCNews.ca will soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions and be home to a diverse group of writers with many perspectives. In this, we will better reflect the depth and texture of this country.

We erred in our editorial judgment. You told us in no uncertain terms. And we have learned from it.

Hey Charlie Gibson and ABC News... how about learning from your friends to the north...

Fat chance.

Global Warming or global cooling?

More like global fooling:

In yesterday’s “The Day The Earth Cooled” Investor’s Business Daily noted Al Gore’s call for civil disobedience against coal plants, and the inconvenient truth of NASA’s recent discussion of Ulysses’s solar-wind data.

    On the same day Gore spoke, scientists involved in NASA’s Ulysses project reported that the intensity of the sun’s solar wind was at its lowest point since the beginning of the space age — one more indication that the sun, the biggest source of energy affecting the Earth, is getting quiet.

    The weaker solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun’s magnetic field, but the cause is unknown. Sunspots, which normally fluctuate in 11-year cycles, are at a virtual standstill. In August, the sun created no visible spots. The last time that happened: June 1913.

    The results of the Ulysses spacecraft’s mission, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory project scientist Ed Smith, show that “we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated.”

    The consequences for Earth are enormous. The lack of increased activity could signal the start of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event that occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. It leads to extended periods of severe cooling such as what happened during the Little Ice Age.

    It may already be happening. The four major agencies tracking Earth’s temperature, including NASA’s Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930.

    The climate is changing, but not in the direction Al Gore thinks. As the Earth demonstrably cools under a weakening sun, a 10-state coalition on Thursday held the nation’s first carbon allowance auction to deal with a warming trend that may have ended a decade ago.

    They will impose a minor league version of the Lieberman-Warner economy-killing cap-and-trade rationing system in which emissions are limited by a progressively lowered cap. Emission permits are auctioned off by government, making it a cap-and-tax system. Permits can be traded or sold between companies like baseball cards.

    The Lieberman-Warner bill would mandate emission cuts of 44% below 2007 levels. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that it would cost as much as $3 trillion a year in lost GDP in an economy of roughly $14 trillion. It dwarfs the current financial crisis. But then, it’s for a good cause — right, Al?

Hey, if they didn't manufacture one crisis after another, we wouldn't need them now would we?

H/T small dead animals.

This media bias

The Anchoress:

Glenn Reynolds has this from a media newsroom:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: “Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.” I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

I have a couple friends who work in newsrooms, too, and one of them tells me the newsroom is “unbelievably cavalier” about any “complaints” viewers register about their reports, what they ignore, their bias or the way the edit Republicans vs. the way the treat Dems. “Cavalier” as in the fix is in, they don’t even have to pretend to care what half the country thinks or wants.

I suppose this is why print media and the press in general don’t care about their tumbling revenues; when The Pelosi gets the regulated internet and restricted Congress that she wants, and Obama gets his thugs and his Justice Department monitoring, intimidating and shutting down alternative media (and the dissenting voices we’ve been told are “patriotic” when a Republican is in the White House) the incestuous mainstream press will go back to being the only game in town.  Pravda West.

It's the most frustrating thing to see and experience.  It's a hoodwinking and a half and it's as if most of America is in some Stepford Wife trance, just going along with whatever the MSM is feeding them.

What in hell is going on?

(Actually, I think hell has a lot to do with it)