Barry ready to RULE

[subdjoe]

media.newsbusters.org/stories/obama-spokesman-says-obama-ready-rule-day-1.html?q=blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/11/10/obama-spokesman-says-obama-ready-rule-day-1

Nice turn of phrase. Freudian.

[bolverk]

Excuse me while I adjust my shackles.

[The Big Dog]

I don't think it is a slip at all, Freudian or otherwise. That is their intent, they are stating it plainly and seeing who is listening.

After all, the transition is delivering it's pronouncements from behind a lectern emblazoned with huge letters reading....

"Office of the The President-Elect"

As if there is some measure of actual power that goes with having been elected president but not yet being sworn in.

[bolverk]

There is much pomp and circumstance with the incoming administration, isn't there.

[subdjoe]

Nov 10, 2008 14:32:26 GMT -5 The Big Dog said:

I don't think it is a slip at all, Freudian or otherwise. That is their intent, they are stating it plainly and seeing who is listening.

The only ones LISTENING are conservatives. His massed minions bask in the flow and feel of his words rather than the content of them.

Hmm....thinking about that, that is all there has been to his words - flow and feel, there has been no content.

[The Big Dog]

In case you missed it, here is a transcript of Barack's first press conference.

A number of interesting tidbits jump off the page....

Question: Thank you, Mr. President-elect. I wonder what you think any president can accomplish during their first 100 days in office to turn the economy around? How far can you go? And what will be your priorities on day one?

Obama: Well, I think that a new president can do an enormous amount to restore confidence, to move an agenda forward that speaks to the needs of the economy and the needs of middle-class families all across the country.

I've outlined during the course of the campaign some critical issues that I intend to work on.

We have a current financial crisis that is spilling out into rest of the economy, and we have taken some action so far. More action is undoubtedly going to be needed. My transition team is going to be monitoring very closely what happens over the course of the next several months.

The one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after inauguration.

We are going to have to focus on jobs, because the hemorrhaging of jobs has an impact, obviously, on consumer confidence and the ability of people to -- to buy goods and services and can have enormous spillover effects.

And I think it's going to be very important for us to provide the kinds of assistance to state and local governments to make sure that they don't compound some of the problems that are already out there by having to initiate major layoffs or initiate tax increases.

So there are some things that we know we're going to have to do, but I'm confident that a new president can have an enormous impact. That's why I ran for president.

So after a truly fawning, open ended question we learn that...

** We have to have a "stimulus" package, although there is no indication of how he thinks it could be paid for.

** He wants to throw money at state and local governments (another form of stimulus I guess) so that government won't have to lay people off (heavens to betsy we couldn't do that) or raise state and local taxes. Apparently Governor Schwarzenegger didn't check with Barack before trotting out his increase of the state sales tax to 10.25%.

Question: (off-mike) ... from House Democrats that the stimulus package may be in trouble, that it's going to be a hard time getting out of a lame-duck session. Are you still confident that you would be able to get something done before you actually take office?

Obama: I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later. If it does not get done in the lame-duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.

Perhaps the most boneheaded question of the event... until he takes office as the 44th president on January 20, Barack is a freshman senator with no more real power to form and shape the agenda than that. And if yet another stimulus is passed before his inauguration I seriously doubt that Madame Speaker and Leader Reid are going to let him take credit for it.

Meanwhile, still no indication of how he intends to pay for a new "stimulus". Which means.... "we'll just borrow the money from China".

After some fobbish questioning about what kind of dog he is going to get for the girls (like that is REAL important) there was a bit more meat....

Question: You are now privy to a lot of intelligence that you haven't had access to before, in fact, much of what the president sees, I'm sure all of it.

First of all, do you -- what do you think about the state of U.S. intelligence, whether you think it needs beefing up, whether you think there's enough interaction between the various agencies?

And, second of all, has anything that you've heard given you pause about anything you've talked about on the campaign trail?

Obama: Well, as you know, if -- if there was something I had heard, I couldn't tell you. But...

Question: (off-mike)

Obama: I have received intelligence briefings. And I will make just a general statement.

Our intelligence process can always improve. I think it has gotten better. And, you know, beyond that, I don't think I should comment on the nature of the intelligence briefings.

Apparerntly the intelligence briefers made clear to him that he is getting a new job, and access to lots of cool information but that STFU is a big part of that access. Given the tone of his answers I am guessing they let him know that the alien has a cold again.

And then, at the end, there was this......

Question: Mr. President-elect, do you still intend to seek income tax increases for upper-income Americans? And if so, should these Americans expect to pay higher taxes in 2009?

Obama: The -- my tax plan represented a net tax cut. It provided for substantial middle-class tax cuts; 95 percent of working Americans would receive them.

It also provided for cuts in capital gains for small businesses, additional tax credits. All of it is designed for job growth.

My priority is going to be, how do we grow the economy? How do we create more jobs?

I think that the plan that we've put forward is the right one, but, obviously, over the next several weeks and months, we're going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole.

But, understand, the goal of my plan is to provide tax relief to families that are struggling, but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up.

A complete non-answer to a direct question. He fell back on campaign rhetoric instead of giving a hard answer.

And with that potentially tough question he ended the press conference then and there. Pretty much all fluff and no substance. So is there any reason for conservatives to be in the slightest bit hopeful of some "bi=partisanship"?

[bolverk]

Nope

[jgaffney]

Nature, and the Democrat Party, abhors a vacuum. Sensing his momet in time, Rahm Emanuel rushed in to fill the gap. This is from the Financial Times:

US President-elect Barack Obama intends to push a comprehensive programme of social and economic reform beyond an immediate emergency stimulus package, Rahm Emanuel, the next White House chief of staff, indicated on Sunday.

Mr Emanuel brushed aside concerns that an Obama administration would risk taking on too much when it takes office in January. He said Mr Obama saw the financial meltdown as an historic opportunity to deliver the large-scale investments that Democrats had promised for years.

Tackling the meltdown would not entail delays in plans for far-reaching energy, healthcare and education reforms when all three were also in crisis, he said. “These are crises you can no longer afford to postpone [addressing].”

So, in other words, the deficit is only a problem when the Democrat Party is the out party. when they're in power, les bon temps roulez!

Also, as I continually explain to my kids, there is a big difference between an investment and an expense. An investment is something you expect a cash return on. An expense is just that - money spent. Just think of all the billions we have "invested" in the Great Society - what exactly do we have to show for it? Why has all of the money "invested" in the War on Poverty only result in more poor?

We're in big trouble.

[bolverk]

Come on baby let the good times roll...

[jgaffney]

Prez-to-be Obama is suddenly realizing that it's a big, bad world out there. This is from the AP:

President Bush leaves President-elect Obama broad latitude for covert action in countries with which the United States is not at war, powers that Obama could scale back along with other Bush presidential orders now under consideration for rescinding.

But he's not likely to do that.

Obama already has telegraphed his willingness to exercise those powers if he deems them necessary.

Obama said in an August speech that he would target high-value terrorists in Pakistan without that government's permission.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and if President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said, referring to Pakistan's president. Musharraf since has been replaced by President Asif Ali Zardari.

Rescinding blanket orders would limit Obama's flexibility and proscribe the ability of U.S. intelligence and military forces to capture or kill wanted terrorists, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Monday. The official spoke anonymously in order to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

That authority is derived, at least in part, from National Security Presidential Directive 9, signed in October 2001.

Waita, waita, waita minite!! Weren't all of these executive powers an abomination, according to the Left? Rush has this:

So, you see, the Bush executive orders allowing us to go wherever we wanted to go in the world to find the bad guys with Special Ops, that was horrible. That was worth leaking to the front page of the New York Times yesterday. Every covert operation that the Drive-Bys could find on Bush was leaked from the CIA, leaked from the state department, leaked from the Pentagon, plastered all over the newspapers. Bush was said to be spying on Americans. Bush was just horrible! He was violating everybody's civil rights. Bush had to go; Bush had to be impeached. Bush didn't care. He was listening in on your phone calls. Bush was running around the world. America was hated by the world because Bush was running around with these kinds of orders. But now that they are Obama's, why, it's perfectly understandable that he would not rescind them!

Why, because Obama needs the flexibility. If he has to go in and bomb Pakistan without Pakistan's permission he needs the flexibility to do it. Yes, yes. That's right. "Those are our planes now," Ron. These are our executive orders now. These are our covert operations. "Rescinding blanket orders would limit Obama's flexibility and proscribe the ability of U.S. intelligence and military forces to capture or kill wanted terrorists..." So when Bush was doing these things, why, it was bad! It was bad for America, bad for the world, poisoning. It was poisoning the attitude of the world against us and was going over the heads of Congress. He was slapping Congress in the face. He was ripping the Constitution to shreds. He was using the Constitution as toilet paper. But now? But now it's Obama, and he must have the flexibility to do these things in order to go after terrorists and catch bad guys.

[jgaffney]

Here's a little more from John Feehery:

Obama might think he is smarter than Bush, but he better think very carefully about how he approaches the decisions that Bush made and that he is thinking about reversing.

Obama has stated publicly that he would like to pull American troops out of Iraq almost immediately and that he would have open talks with the Iranians. He has also privately mused about reversing the Bush decision to put anti-ballistic missiles into Poland as part of an effort to create a protective shield against possible Iranian missiles.

All three of those decisions, however, would have far-reaching and negative consequences for American diplomacy. Pulling our troops out too soon could have a devastating impact on our efforts to create a stable and prosperous Iraq. The Iraqis are not out of the woods yet, and too quick a pullout could be a disaster.

The Israelis are especially concerned with Obama’s position on talking to the Iranians without preconditions. They see that any sign of weakness will embolden the Iranians and possibly endanger country.

And if we reverse our decision to deploy missiles to Poland, the Russians will claim victory. They will portray this as a triumph for an aggressive and powerful Russian empire and it will deal a severe setback to the Poles, who went out on a limb to support this American policy.

Elections have consequences. President Bush might have seemed like he didn’t know what he was doing, but to the Poles, the Iraqis and the Israelis, his firm hand gave them comfort against enemies of peace and freedom. It is easy to give a nice speech and employ lofty rhetoric. It is not always easy to take steps that may be politically unpopular, but good for the security of our country and our allies.

I hope President Bush gave President-elect Obama that advice as they spoke in the Oval Office today.

If Bush gave Obama any advice on these three issues, I hope the President-elect took it to heart.

We're in big trouble.

[jgaffney]

This is the kind of article I like to clip out and put in my tickler file. This is from the AP:

In one of the economy's darkest hours in decades, it looks as if people are taking Barack Obama up on his exhortations for hope and change. Seven in 10, or 72 percent, voice confidence the president-elect will make the changes needed to revive the stalling economy, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday. Underscoring how widely the public is counting on its new leader, 44 percent of Republicans joined nearly all Democrats and most independents in expressing that belief.

The poll shows trust in Obama's ability to succeed is even broader, at least for now. Sixty-eight percent said they think when he takes office in January, the new president will be able to enact the policies he pushed during his presidential campaign.

"I don't think one person, the president or otherwise, can fix the problems," said Ryan Anderson, 31, a Democrat from Bloomington, Minn. "But I have strong faith that he'll assemble the right group of individuals to address the problems. I think that's going to be a benchmark of Obama's presidency."

I think the real headline should be, "72% Duped By Obama's Promises." Given that 55 million voters backed McCain and his economic policies, I would be curious to see the details behind the AP poll.

We'll see how this actually turns out. As always, I will be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.