Obama's new priority: Fixing College Football!

You gotta wonder about the priorities of the Obama Administration.

Obama has said a thousand times that he inherited a mess and was forced by "Bush" to bail out the world, while trying to fix a "shattered" economy. So what does he do? He goes for the progressive "brass ring" of a massive health care reform bill that raises taxes and adds trillions of dollars to the crippling deficit, all the while trying to package it as a "jobs saving" effort.

As we saw in the recent MA election results and ObamaCare's spiraling poll numbers, the people are smarter than the left gives them credit for being. They can see through the specious arguments that it would "fix the economy" and "cut the deficit". And they've been similarly skeptical of the massive "cap and tax" climate bill that would increase the cost of energy, the huge stimulus bill that has been anything but "stimulating" (unless you are a government worker.) The public seems to "get it" now. But can the same be said for Obama, Pelosi, Frank and Reid?

Well, just when you thought the President might get the message that the public is not as "progressive" as the Democrat majority thinks it is, comes a new initiative by the Obama White House: Fixing college football's BCS (Bowl Championship Series). That's right, the Holder Justice Department is looking into forcing college football to abandon the BCS in favor of a playoff system. As SI.com reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review.

In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the Justice Department is reviewing Hatch's request and other materials to determine whether to open an investigation into whether the BCS violates antitrust laws.

"Importantly, and in addition, the administration also is exploring other options that might be available to address concerns with the college football postseason," Weich wrote, including asking the Federal Trade Commission to review the legality of the BCS under consumer protection laws.

Several lawmakers and many critics want the BCS to switch to a playoff system, rather than the ratings system it uses to determine the teams that play in the championship game.

"The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football ... raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties," Weich wrote.

Weich made note of the fact that President Barack Obama, before he was sworn in, had stated his preference for a playoff system. In 2008, Obama said he was going to "to throw my weight around a little bit" to nudge college football toward a playoff system, a point that Hatch stressed when he urged Obama last fall to ask the department to investigate the BCS.

Weich said that other options include encouraging the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason; asking a governmental or non-governmental commission to review the costs, benefits and feasibility of a playoff system; and legislative efforts aimed at prompting a switch to a playoff system.

Weich noted that several undefeated teams have not had a chance to play for the national championship, including TCU and Boise State this year and Utah last year.

So, let's see: we have the Justice Department completely screwing up on the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's incarceration and interrogation -- cutting off a flow of valuable information by reading him his Miranda rights like a common criminal. We have Eric Holder making the inexplicable decision to try the 9/11 mastermind Khalil Sheik Muhammed in NYC, giving him a bully pulpit to lecture the United States at a cost (to taxpayers) of $200 million a year in security. You have the Justice Department sending Guantanamo detainees back to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where they are taking up arms against us AGAIN. And now they are focusing on the lack of a college football playoff system.

Don't you feel safer now that Obama and Holder are in charge?

Beyond the shear ridiculousness of the priority set, the intervention into the market of college football is also stunning. In a true statist view of the world, Obama apparently feels that he "should throw his weight around" and dictate to a privately run and financed association how it should crown its national champion. Well, why not? Why shouldn't the "anointed" one decree how football should be played? Maybe he'll also decree that a touchdown should be 10 points, and that any team more than 20 points behind in the fourth quarter should get an extra man (we don't want to hurt any of the player's self esteem, after all.)

I guess nothing should surprise us. After all, I'm sure that Abdulmutallab, KSM and the other terrorists who will be ensconced in some "Club Fed" somewhere will be getting ESPN piped in to their cells (err...lounges) in full HD. I'm sure they'll love a college football playoff, too!

The future of the GOP?

I'm not going to waste any time here on the President's State of the Union speech -- mainly because I didn't see it. I'm in Kauai and wasn't going to taint the experience by watching Obama lie while Biden and Pelosi look on. Who needs that when I can sit on the lanai and watch the whales swim by?

In any event, the one thing I did see tonight via Youtube is the Republican response by new Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.

In a word: impressive.

This guy may be the future of the GOP: smart, articulate and mired in the kind of rock-ribbed conservative values that most of America will find very appealing (save the kooky left that reads the DailyKos and thinks the Democrats are doing a great job).

In any event, check out McDonnell's rebuttal to the SOTU here:



Watch for more from this up-and-comer!

Oregon soaks "the rich"

Oregon borders the state of California, but apparently the voters there haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in the erstwhile "Golden State". Yesterday Oregon approved a new set of taxes on Oregon corporations and "the rich" -- meaning those making more than $250,000. In a pair of initiatives funded by the teacher's unions and other public sector employee groups, Oregon voters bought a campaign that effectively played "class warfare", claiming "draconian" cuts to vital social progams unless the "rich pay their fair share". It is a typical page out of the "progressive" politics handbook: claim that the most productive members of society are somehow not giving enough, and then link it to little kids not getting a good education or old people not getting proper medical care.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Oregon proponents of the ballot measures put it in stark terms:

"Passage of these measures means we keep core services of education, health care and public safety that Oregon families, businesses, and communities count on," said Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt, a Democrat who represents Clackamas County. Defeat, he said, would have forced the state to cut nearly a billion dollars more from such services.

"Oregon voters said 'no' to more 4-day school weeks and bulging class sizes and 'yes' to corporations and the wealthy paying their fair share," added Gail Rasmussen, president of the Oregon Education Association, one of the public-sector unions that campaigned hard for Measure 66 and 67's passage. "Tonight's results are a credit to the hard work of parents, educators, and thousands of Oregonians from every walk of life who stood up to protect our schools."

This is predictable -- and also deeply flawed. As we have learned from California's problems, higher taxes on the "wealthy" lead only to a more volatile and vulnerable tax base. As I've written about previously, California's budget problems come from a combination of an overly progressive tax system that forces a tiny percentage of tax payers to foot the bill for everyone else, and egregiously generous pay, pension and retirement benefits to public sector employees. In the boom years, California ratcheted up spending that couldn't be sustained when tax receipts plummeted during the down years. Meanwhile, the unions and education "establishment" kept getting paid. It's a disastrous combination and hardly a model worth pursuing.

But Oregon doesn't seem to care -- mired in progressive "anti-business, anti-rich" populism. Even worse, they have ignored the fact that much of California's productive class has left the state for Nevada or other lower-tax locales. That has further lowered the tax base and made things even more precarious. And Oregon has a no-tax state on its own border -- Washington.

All Oregon has to do is look south to see how this story turns out.

The "great communicator"?

Democrats like to talk about Barack Obama as the left's answer to Ronald Reagan -- a gifted, transformational communicator. It's a false comparison, of course: Reagan was amazingly successful at using the "bully pulpit" to rally support for his programs, using his public appeals as a bargaining chip in dealing with Congress at home and the Soviet Union abroad.

Obama, on the other hand, has seen his public appeals fall on deaf ears: after making no fewer than 30 direct public speeches on health care reform (including a highly publicized speech to a joint session of Congress), the results have been failure. Not only did he not manage to galvanize public support in favor of the health care reform program, but he actually oversaw a precipitous decline in its popularity. The more Obama talked the less people listened.

You can't manufacture sincerity. People understood at a visceral level that Ronald Reagan was sincere in his beliefs -- rooted in a philosophy that Reagan had lived his life pursuing and proselytizing. With Obama you get the sense that he is making it up as he goes, because he doesn't really believe the "post-partisan" "unifying" schtick he is selling. He really believes in redistributionism and socialism -- but that's not what he can say in public. So the president is left "selling" something he doesn't believe in.

And the American people can tell. He's not sincere. He's not honest. He's spinning continuously -- like when he tried to tell ABC News that the same discontent that elected him in 2008 is what swept Scott Brown into office in MA last week.

It's all spin, all the time.

So, the next time you hear the liberal media talk about Obama as the "great communicator", remember this picture below. That's Obama last week talking to a class of 6th graders in an elementary school.

Using a podium and teleprompters. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan doing that?

Please! What a joke. This guy is totally manufactured. He can't just "wing it" in front of a bunch of 11 year olds?


*UPDATE: It now appears that Obama had two meetings at the school -- one in front of kids and the other for reporters. The picture above is apparently for his presentation to reporters, where he made a "prepared statement" about education. His meeting with the 6th graders was more informal, with he and Ed Secretary Arne Duncan sitting on chairs in front of the kids (sans teleprompter). For more, click here.

For my money, it doesn't change the essence of my post: Obama is reliant on his teleprompter to an unnatural degree. Why can't he do a scheduled statement to the press at a school without them? Can you imagine the effort it took to get all that stuff set up? That's taxpayer's money at work!

Rove on Obama

Courtesy of American Power, a great interview with Karl Rove on Obama, health care reform and the so-called "pivot":

Nanu Nanu! Howard Dean plays Mork!

A friend sent me a link to this video.

Please watch it. It will show you just how out to lunch the left-wing of the Democrat Party is. I half expect Howard Dean to say to Chris Mathews "Nanu Nanu" ala Mork in the middle of this interview.

It's so out of left field that even Mathews -- who is a solid leftist himself -- can't seem to get his pea-brain around it.

Dean seems to think that the voters in Massachusetts rejected Martha Coakley because they want "real change" and aren't getting it in Washington.

Let me translate that for you in lib-speak:

Voters rejected Martha Coakley (who favored a Public Option and individual mandate) and voted for Scott Brown (who vowed to be the 41st vote in the Senate to kill the reform bill) because the health care bill wasn't PROGRESSIVE enough.

That's right! Voters want a more radical health care bill! That's why Scott Brown won!

It's absolutely unreal -- but this is the kind of thinking that has gotten the left into so much trouble with the American people. They just don't GET IT!

Will: The Curse of Opportunity

I've long been a big fan of George Will -- from the days he was the conservative commentator on "This Week with David Brinkley". I was always amazed at his ability to speak in paragraphs, responding extemporaneously to questions as if he had (dare I say it) a teleprompter.

So, leave it to Will to put in perfect relief the aftermath of the Brown victory for the left. Here's a great passage:

In their joyless, tawdry slog toward passage of their increasingly ludicrous bill, Democrats cling grimly to Robert Frost's axiom that "the best way out is always through." Their sole remaining reason for completing the damn thing is that they started it. They seem to have convinced themselves that Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994 because they did not pass an unpopular health bill in 1993. Actually, their 1994 debacle had more to do with the arrogance and malfeasance arising from 40 years of control of the House of Representatives (e.g., the House banking scandal), a provocative crime bill (gun control, federal subsidies for midnight basketball), and other matters.

With one piece of legislation, Obama and his congressional allies have done in one year what it took President Lyndon Johnson and his allies two years to do in 1965 and 1966 -- revive conservatism. Today conservatism is rising on the stepping stones of liberal excesses...

The 2008 elections gave liberals the curse of opportunity, and they have used it to reveal themselves ruinously. The protracted health care debacle has highlighted this fact: Some liberals consider the legislation's unpopularity a reason to redouble their efforts to inflict it on Americans who, such liberals think, are too benighted to understand that their betters know best. The essence of contemporary liberalism is the illiberal conviction that Americans, in their comprehensive incompetence, need minute supervision by government, which liberals believe exists to spare citizens the torture of thinking and choosing.

The essence of contemporary liberalism is the illiberal conviction that Americans, in their comprehensive incompetence, need minute supervision by government, which liberals believe exists to spare citizens the torture of thinking and choosing.

Read the rest of it here.