Why? Here’s why:

…To be blunt, Obama suffers from a lifetime of others excessively praising his intellect. It insulates him from ideas and facts that conflict with his pre-existing liberal rubric (so “every economist” believed his stimulus would work). It leaves him unprepared to engage in real debate with informed opponents (e.g. the health-care summit). It skews his understanding of how geopolitics works, as he imagines that his own wonderfulness can sway adversaries and override nations’ fundamental interests (the Middle East). Is he as well read as George W. Bush? As intellectually creative as Bill Clinton? As grounded in history as Harry Truman? Let’s get some perspective here…

I have to agree that Obama was much oversold as a smart guy – I mean, he may have a great deal of intellectual ability, but he doesn’t have any real world knowledge, no sense of humility and a complete inability to see the other side. As far as a leader goes, he’s as dumb as a box of rocks because of this.

This is why we see him making incredibly stupid statements like getting in to the Ground Zero mosque issue when he could have just stayed out of it (as a smart politician – Hillary Clinton – is). All of his mistakes are traceable to this lack of political intelligence – he might have an IQ of 140, but his political IQ is about 80.

Let’s hope he smarts up a bit before he entirely wrecks the nation…

From AFP:

The White House said Monday that July 2011 was a “non-negotiable” deadline for starting a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, while insisting that President Barack Obama and his top general in Kabul were on the same page.

The White House was quizzed about a seeming disconnect between the two after General David Petraeus said in an interview aired Sunday that he could seek a delay in the troop drawdown if conditions on the ground required it…

The switch to General Petraeus gave the White House an excellent opportunity to mute the 2011 time table and thus add an element of uncertainty in to al Qaeda and Taliban plans. They are banking on us leaving, and thus their strategy is merely to remain viable until we start to leave – and then they’ll move in. Additionally, it is hard for us to gain local support from people we’ll leave to the Taliban’s tender mercies. This White House statement just blows Petraeus out of the water and provides security for the enemy.

I hope that better thinking people in the White House will prevail – the campaign in Afghanistan is proving very difficult and our troops are extending full effort to win…they need to be given the tools to do so, which includes time. And keep in mind that if we take away the time limit, we may even be able to start drawing down sooner – we are looking for some sort of replay of the “Anbar awakening” in Iraq…some shift in popular opinion which will bring the Afghans down on our side, thus taking away the “sea” the terrorist “fish” swim in. As we saw in Iraq, once that is done it become only a matter of a relatively short time before most of the terrorists are picked off or picked up.

Holding to an absurd, artificial time line at the behest of the Democrat left is just plain and simple stupid – we must go for victory in Afghanistan, and you can’t set a date for that.

From the Wall Street Journal via NewsAlert:

…Another notable episode occurred during his pursuit (as special prosecutor) of former Vice Presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame affair. At a 2005 press conference, Mr. Fitzgerald implied that Mr. Libby had obstructed his investigation into who leaked the former CIA analysts’s name, even though he knew from the start that the real “leaker” was Richard Armitage.

Then there was the railroading of Conrad Black, the conservative newspaper baron who was convicted in 2007 using the infinitely malleable “honest services” fraud law. The Supreme Court junked much of that law earlier this year, leading to Mr. Black’s release from prison. The jury had earlier dismissed nine of the 13 charges Mr. Fitzgerald filed.

This pattern points to a willful prosecutor who throws an exaggerated book at unpopular defendants and hopes at least one of the charges will stick, even as he flouts due process and the presumption of innocence when the political winds are high…

Indeed – and in the Blago case, I think that Fitzgerald deliberately moved far too soon in order to spare high Obama aides from possible prosecution. It is clear that Blago wasn’t just out there selling a Senate seat all on his lonesome – he had prospective customers and all of them had some sort of Obama connection.

This is enough travesty of justice from one man – it is time for Fitzgerald to go.

By pissing everyone off – from the LA Times:

We have one word for you, Mr. President, the next time you want to sweep into Los Angeles late on a weekday afternoon: Helicopter. That way, you can avoid the streets the rest of us mere residents must use to get around…

…A Brentwood resident’s two-mile jaunt took 45 minutes. An Echo Park couple who left home at 5:30 p.m. found their usual 20-minute drive west to Olympic and Rimpau boulevards took a whopping hour and 15 minutes. An attorney left his Miracle Mile-area office at 5:45 p.m. and sat unmoving in traffic for 45 minutes.

No matter their politics, Los Angeles residents found themselves united. “It was a beautiful thing,” said Brentwood resident Myles Berkowitz, commiserating with his neighbors on Montana Avenue. “Young, old, black, white — everyone was pissed off.”…

Who is in charge of Obama’s political team these days? “Tin ear” doesn’t even begin to describe it…

Unbelievable:

“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how … this opposition to the mosque is being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community, as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City?”

It doesn’t matter, Nancy – its not for you, as Speaker, to ask in to the background or motivations of those who are asking questions…you job, as servant of the people, is to just answer the dratted question.

But that is how they view us – servants of the Ruling Class; people who are not to dare question the Rulers.

November can’t come fast enough.

A recent report on the cost of freedom – from the AP:

In the summer twilight, a crowd gathers on a baseball diamond in Seattle, candles in hand, to remember a sailor who not long ago ran this dusty path.

In a California church, a young widow reunites with friends she saw just nine months ago at her wedding – this time, though, they’ve come to bid farewell to her soldier-husband.

And in a Tennessee high school, a family friend remembers the eager boy who grew up counting the days until he could don an Army uniform.

Day after day, the war in Afghanistan comes home…

Remember that every day while you and I sit safe and dry here at home, our best and bravest are out there putting their lives on the line. In this, it doesn’t matter your opinions – your opinions mean nothing to a 20 year old soldier on patrol in Afghanistan. All that soldier wants is the knowledge that you’ll back him up, and honor him by living the liberty he secures for us.

Don’t let a day go by without thinking of them – praying for them, and for the victory which will allow all of them to come home.

From AFP:

Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians…

The longer the world waits to genuinely confront Iran’s nuclear program, the narrower the options become while any action becomes increasingly dangerous. The time really is now – to strike now, before Iran has any functioning nuclear facilities. If we wait – if the world waits – then we’ll one day be confronted with a nuclear-armed Iran, with all that means in terms of terrorist and other threats.

Is the world listening? We’ll soon find out.

From CNBC:

U.S. bankruptcy filings have reached the highest level since 2005, government data released on Tuesday show, as the economy slows and the unemployment rate hovers just below double digits.

There were 422,061 bankruptcy filings between April and June, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, up 9 percent from 388,148 in the prior three-month period, and up 11 percent from 381,073 a year earlier.

For the year ended June 30, there were 1.57 million bankruptcies, up 20 percent from 1.31 million a year earlier.

But the economy is all better now – Obama and Co say so. The stimulus worked! Trust us!

I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems to me that rising bankruptcies indicate a worsening economic situation. It really is the last resort for people who simply cannot carry the debt load anymore – anyone filing bankruptcy now probably went through savings, 401ks, life style reductions…everything they could think of before taking this step. And here’s the really bad news – business bankruptcies have risen 9% over a year ago.

Much worse times are coming, fellow Americans – we can tough it out as poverty really isn’t the worst thing which can happen. But we do need to get rid of the Ruling Class clowns so that we can start rebuilding.

But only a little bit – from Yahoo News:

A federal jury found former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich guilty on Tuesday of one count of lying to federal agents, and the judge said he intends to declare a mistrial on the more serious remaining 23 counts…

This is probably the ultimate result of the prosecutor moving on the case before the full scale of the scandal was uncovered…and, of course, before it became close enough to Obama people to result in indictments.

Blago will now probably get a slap on the wrist, and a pardon on January 19th, 2013…and Chicago corruption will continue on its merry way.

HAT TIP: Sister Toldjah