As we enter this final week of America As We’ve Know Her, let us pause to consider what the Obama Error will bring…and try not to laugh, or cry, ok?

Obama got his gay supporters fuming by inviting a conservative evangelical to the inaugural, now he’s balancing it out:

Following the row that erupted after pro-marriage and pro-life Saddleback pastor Rick Warren was picked to preside over the main inauguration event, Obama has selected the Episcopal Church’s only openly homosexual bishop to give the main invocation at a Sunday event celebrating Obama’s inauguration, to be held two days later.

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a central figure in the homosexual clergy controversy that has rocked the worldwide Anglican communion, will deliver his invocation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“I’m just overwhelmed and so humbled by this invitation,” said Robinson, who entered into a legal civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrews in June.

And if that doesn’t satisfy the gay rights movement, I don’t know what will…on the other hand, to have a “bishop” who abandoned his wife to shack up with a guy might cause Christians to be doubtful of the fitness of the Obama event in question.

I caught a good deal of it yesterday morning, and there were a couple bits I wanted to comment on:

Q — that you think the Republican Party needs to be more inclusive. Who needs to hear that message inside the Republican Party?

THE PRESIDENT: You see, I am concerned that, in the wake of the defeat, that the temptation will be to look inward and to say, well, here’s a litmus test you must adhere to.

This party will come back. But the party’s message has got to be that different points of view are included in the party. And — take, for example, the immigration debate. That’s obviously a highly contentious issue. And the problem with the outcome of the initial round of the debate was that some people said, well, Republicans don’t like immigrants. Now, that may be fair or unfair, but that’s what — that’s the image that came out.

And, you know, if the image is we don’t like immigrants, then there’s probably somebody else out there saying, well, if they don’t like the immigrants, they probably don’t like me, as well. And so my point was, is that our party has got to be compassionate and broad-minded.

I remember the 1964 elections. My dad happened to be running for the United State Senate then and, you know, got landslided with the Johnson landslide in the state of Texas. But it wasn’t just George Bush who got defeated; the Republican Party was pretty well decimated at the time. At least that’s what they — I think that’s how the pundits viewed it. And then ’66 there was a resurgence. And the same thing can happen this time, but we just got to make sure our message is broad-gauged and compassionate; that we care about people’s lives, and we’ve got a plan to help them improve their lives.

After watching the presser, I headed off to work an on the radio was Laura Ingraham – I highly respect this lady for the passion of her address and the good humor with which she approaches issues, but as regards President Bush and immigration, the good lady goes a bit bonkers. One of the first questions which came to my mind as the rant about how President Bush mucked up immigration reform spilled from the radio was, “so, you think you’re going to get a better deal under Obama?”.

For full disclosure, I was one of the baker’s dozen or so people who backed the Bush immigration plan – and I fully understand the ire of people concerning the flood of illegals which walked across our borders over the past 20 years. But, then again, we pretty much did everything but send them an engraved invitation – to fault President Bush, decades into the problem, for not rounding up 12 million or so people and deporting them was asinine…and if we get past the deportation issue, then there remains the problem of what to do with the people who are here. Call it amnesty if you want, but President Bush was on the right track, and it would have done four things:

1. Stopped the flow of illegals as there would be no reason to be an illegal anymore.

2. Brought illegals into the legitimate economy where they can properly pay taxes and have health insurance, etc and thus stop burdening the taxpayers.

3. Ended the issue and not left it for Obama and his liberal Democrats to work out a new comprehensive “reform” which will be amnesty, pure and simple.

4. It would have made the GOP the party which did the right thing vis a vis our largest and fastest growing ethnic group, hispanics. That right there was about 2 million votes lost for the GOP – if you figure on what GW managed to pull in 2004 and what McCain pulled in 2008. Not enough, in and of itself, to tip the election back to us, but anyone who wants to throw away 2 million votes just to be an immigration purist is a fool.

In the larger sense, what the conservative complaints about President Bush boiled down to was a carp about President Bush not adhering to a purely Reaganite line…but, then again, neither did Reagan. And don’t you see? You can’t just follow the script – you sometimes have to do what you think is best, even if its not ideologically pure. Too often we on the right over the past 10 years have shot ourselves in the foot because we insisted on making the perfect the enemy of the good. Liberals do this, too – and, indeed, they do it more than we do (it takes a real fanatic, for instance, to argue against the Born Alive Act) – but because they are fools doesn’t mean we have to be, too. What I’m saying here, fellow conservatives, is to remember that politics is the art of the possible.

Then there’s this bit:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, in recent days, there’s been a fair amount of discussion in legal circles about whether or not you might give preemptive pardons, pardons in advance, to officials of your administration who engaged in anything from harsh interrogation tactics to perhaps dismissing U.S. attorneys. I’d like to know, have you given any consideration to this? And are you planning on it?

THE PRESIDENT: I won’t be discussing pardons here at this press conference.

The translation of the question: “Are you going to pardon all the war criminals in your Administration?”. Deftly handled, and then President Bush graciously allowed the reporter (from the New York times, naturally) to have a second go at it:

Q And I’m not trying to play “gotcha,” but I wonder, when you look back over the long arc of your presidency, do you think, in retrospect, that you have made any mistakes? And if so, what is the single biggest mistake that you may have made?

THE PRESIDENT: Gotcha. I have often said that history will look back and determine that which could have been done better, or, you know, mistakes I made. Clearly putting a “Mission Accomplished” on a aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message. Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.

I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina — you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and — is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?

I believe that running the Social Security idea right after the ’04 elections was a mistake. I should have argued for immigration reform. And the reason why is, is that — you know, one of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas, by the way, is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse. In other words, sometimes legislatures have the tendency to ask, why should I take on a hard task when a crisis is not imminent? And the crisis was not imminent for Social Security as far as many members of Congress was concerned.

As an aside, one thing I proved is that you can actually campaign on the issue and get elected. In other words, I don’t believe talking about Social Security is the third rail of American politics. I, matter of fact, think that in the future, not talking about how you intend to fix Social Security is going to be the third rail of American politics.

One thing about the presidency is that you can make — only make decisions, you know, on the information at hand. You don’t get to have information after you’ve made the decision. That’s not the way it works. And you stand by your decisions, and you do your best to explain why you made the decisions you made.

There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way.

Anyway, I think historians will look back and they’ll be able to have a better look at mistakes after some time has passed. Along Jake’s question, there is no such thing as short-term history. I don’t think you can possibly get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed: Where does a President’s — did a President’s decisions have the impact that he thought they would, or he thought they would, over time? Or how did this President compare to future Presidents, given a set of circumstances that may be similar or not similar? I mean, there’s — it’s just impossible to do. And I’m comfortable with that.

In a nutshell, that is the description of what being President is like – the attempt to make the right decisions with the full knowledge that no matter what you do, there is always a way to second guess it later and, additionally, there will always be critics. Fortunately for himself – and for us – President Bush is a very centered and reasonable man who is upheld in his day to day living by faith in God. After 8 years of being through the meatgrinder of American politics and having the most wickedly false slanders launched against him, he’s still the same man who came to town…gracious, thoughtful and unwilling to get into a pissing match with those who hammered him for years.

In a way, I already miss President Bush – he’s still in office, but of course its more the illusion of a Presidency at this point…unless there’s a crisis, there will be no further call for President Bush, and even if there is a crisis he’ll have the wisdom to immediately bring Obama in and not make any decisions without his knowledge and consent, given that whatever decisions are made now will be carried through by Obama, for good or ill. I’m going to miss him more as time goes on – and unless Obama turns out to be all I don’t expect him to be, the whole nation and the whole world will come to miss him, too.

Obama deludes himself by thinking he comes even close to comparing with Abraham Lincoln, but I guess there is an interesting comparison to be made… 

Abraham Lincoln, as we all know, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in confederate states. Barack Obama want to sign an executive order (which we may as well call the Terrorist Emancipation Proclamation) to shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison, where  hundreds of captured al Qaeda terrorists are incarcerated… a priority so important to him, he may do so on his first day of power.

President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers.

It’s unlikely the detention facility at the Navy base in Cuba will be closed anytime soon. In an interview last weekend, Obama said it would be “a challenge” to close it even within the first 100 days of his administration. 

Looks like al Qaeda will have an ally in the Oval Office starting January 20th.

Looks like birds of a feather do flock together.

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner’s name and biography had been removed from Socialist International’s Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available.

Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world’s social democratic political parties such as Britain’s Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.

The group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization’s action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Obama, who has said action on climate change would be a priority in his administration, tapped Mrs. Browner last month to fill a new position as White House coordinator of climate and energy policies. The appointment does not need Senate confirmation. 

Obama himself was once a member of the Socialist New Party. So really, this doesn’t surprise me one bit.

Peter Brookes gives a run-down of it all, while a sample will do to cause our local liberals to have conniption fits:

US-India relations are better than ever due to Bush administration efforts. Even Pakistan is doing a better job recently in fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in its border areas with Afghanistan.

Today, Afghanistan is a lot better off: more than 30 million Afghans no longer labor under terrorist Taliban rule. Healthcare access is up; child mortality is down. Six million kids go to school, including nearly 2 million girls who would not otherwise be allowed to.

In Europe, the Bush administration led a charge for NATO expansion, bringing seven former Warsaw Pact enemies into the democratic transatlantic alliance.

The Bush White House also oversaw Kosovo’s transition to independence from Serbia, helping to start to close a chapter in the Balkan’s long, bloody history.

In the Middle East, Lebanon no longer labors under the yoke of Syrian domination, which ended its occupation after almost 30 years. In Iraq, nearly 30 million people are no longer subject to Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.

The surge of American troops into Iraq has left al Qaeda there battered, bewildered and in retreat in what Osama bin Laden said would be the decisive battle in its global jihad. While still dangerous, al Qaeda has suffered a stinging blow.

In Latin America, US ally Colombia has prospered under Washington’s “Plan Colombia,” a counter-drug and -terrorism program. The narco-terrorist group FARC is reeling from the pressure applied to it by Bogota – with U.S. assistance.

Obama does have the hard task of winding up Iraq and securing final victory in Afghanistan, but if he merely carries forward President Bush’s foreign and security policies, then the United States – and the world – will reap massive benefits. Obama’s apparent desire to open direct talks with Hamas (as if one should open up direct talks with the Gestapo, or the Mafia) is worrisome, but to be expected in a liberal, Democratic Administration. Hopefully, such things will wind up no more than kook left window dressing on what is really no more than Bush, Continued in our policies abroad.

To be sure, President Bush leaves office a man disliked by many, reviled by some – and deeply loved by those of us who, perhaps, have taken the time to see what a burden he’s been under especially since 9/11. For us, the end of the Bush era is a sad time – we’re losing a President we can count on, and we’re getting a President who is an unknown quantity. Hopefully Obama will work out ok, but we suspect that within a very few months we’ll all be longing for the crisp, decisive nature of Bush policy.

For now, there isn’t much left to be said – those who hate President Bush will go on hating him simply because they are afraid to rethink their views. Only by the very grace of God can a person who has done wrong willingly come to the admission of error, and be willing to acknowledge such errors in public. Those of us who admire the President will continue to do so – and won’t have anything nagging at our conscience. President Bush did what he thought was best; he made some errors; we backed him because he was mostly doing the exact right thing, while the errors were understandable in the context of the time.

Here is where we’re supposed to say that our sights are to be set on the future – but Christians know better than that; now, like all times, is the time to look at the problems of today and deal with them as best we can. Yesterday can’t be mended, tomorrow might never come. As the Obama Presidency starts to unfold, we’ll deal with it day by day – we (meaning the overall conservative movement) will advise, admonish and, at times, pull our hair out in frustration, but we must never fall in to the poisonous hatred the left has about President Bush. Obama is just a man, and he won’t be there forever – this, too, shall pass…and one day it will be liberals writing about Obama as we conservatives prepare for our guy (or gal, as the case may be) to take office.

With a year-in-review of 2009 (work with me here, people):

JANUARY

Barack Obama makes history as the first African-American sworn in as President of the United States; Invoking legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, promises America “nine years of economic depression, four years of world war, eventual nuking of Japan”

Obama supporters left disappointed as oceans remain at static levels, planet fails to heal self, Dow drops below zero

Read the whole thing for your morning chuckle.

And makes the cover of American Dog. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, there is a magazine called that. Yes, Obama is on the cover. And, yes, he did buy a three legged “rescue” dog – which is, really, mighty nice of him…but, for crying out loud, do we need Obama’s face literally everywhere? I start seeing him on Stalinesque billboards around town and I’m starting a revolution…

Well, well, well – who woulda thunk it?

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly — defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.

Guess Obama wasn’t kidding – elect him and the world will start to cure itself out of sheer hope-n-changeness…

Anthropogenic global warming isn’t happening. It wasn’t happening. It never will happen. Its simply not possible with our puny resources to change global climate which involves materials so vast and so far spread out and containing in it an incalculable number of variables which change every freakin’ minute. I thought you liberals were the humble ones who respect Nature and understand how small Man is in relation to it? Did you forget that bit? Did Al Gore hypnotize you like one of the chickens he used to choke?

Enough of this nonsense, already.

Barack Obama was not one to hold back on doom & gloom characterizations of the economy, so why is it that only now he’s saying all the hope and change he promised will have to be scaled back?

[Comrade] Barack Obama said reviving the U.S. economy will require scaling back on his campaign promises and personal sacrifice from all Americans.

“I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program broadcast this morning. “Everybody’s going to have to give.”

Obama also said in the interview recorded yesterday that he wants stricter guidelines and greater transparency in spending the remaining $350 billion in the Troubled Asset Relief Program. 

It is amazing how different campaign promises are from reality… especially for Barack Hussein Obama. His “hope and change” is looking a lot more like “nope and more of the same.”  It seems like we’re hearing a lot of preemptive excuses being given to explain why Obama is ultimately going to be a huge failure.