The Patriot Post® · Chronicle

The Foundation

“[A] wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

“A majority of Americans disapprove of what President Obama has done in office. He promised hope and change but delivered disappointment and stagnation. The unemployment rate is stuck at 9.1 percent. The poverty rate is at 15.1 percent, tied for the worst performance since the Census started tracking numbers in 1959. White House policies of class warfare and redistribution are impoverishing America, and the public is starting to feel worked over. … During the recession, the average duration of unemployment increased from 16.6 weeks in December 2007 to a shade over 24 weeks by June 2009. That figure is now 40.5 weeks, the longest it has been in more than six decades. The longer a person is unemployed, the harder it is for him to find a job, as job skills erode and potential employers question whether it might be more prudent to hire someone else without big gaps in their work history. Mr. Obama’s solution involves having the federal government declare the long-term unemployed a legally protected class. His American Jobs Act would subject businesses to frivolous lawsuits if they decide against hiring someone who has been jobless for an extended time. Doing so would serve as one more disincentive for companies to hire or hold interviews for open positions, making it even harder for the jobless to find work. … Ultimately, Americans will not find their pocketbooks thickening so long as Uncle Sam strangles entrepreneurs with regulatory red tape. Companies need to have certainty that they will be able to keep the proceeds of their investments in the future before they will start hiring again and pay their employees more.” –The Washington Times

Upright

“Whenever the substance of the Occupy Wall Street movement troubles Democratic politicians their response is to hide behind platitudes about free speech. ‘It’s about their right to express themselves!’ Well, no it’s not. Free speech is important, but it’s really not the issue. It certainly wasn’t even much of a concern when it was the Tea Party expressing itself – which it managed to do without inviting mass arrests. Back then, leading Democrats considered dissent racist or un-American. Now they celebrate free speech so they can hide from dealing with the issues at hand honestly. Democratic politicians think that this gives them cover. It doesn’t. It just shows that they’re afraid to disagree with the protesters either because they agree with them or because they know the protests are popular among their own supporters. Either way, it’s proof that the much ballyhooed wall between mainstream radicalism and mainstream liberalism is more like a speed bump.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

“The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced in a fundraising letter that it is seeking 100,000 signatures on a petition declaring ‘I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.’ And David Plouffe, the president’s senior campaign advisor, sounded upbeat for the first time in a while. ‘We intend to make it one of the central elements of the campaign next year,’ he told the Washington Post. ‘One of the main elements of the contrast will be that the president passed Wall Street reform and our opponent and the other party want to repeal it.’ … OWS is America’s version of the Greek throngs in the streets – screaming for more bailouts and subsidies when the well has run dry. It’s a depressing image of self-delusion and national suicide. But far from the ‘99 percent,’ OWS represents only a sliver of the electorate – and the president’s embrace of them only confirms his marginality in American politics.” –columnist Mona Charen

“Obama entered office unorganized and unstructured. Nothing in his background suggested that he knew anything about management, organization, or leadership. Nor did anyone see the need for bringing in talent with these skills. As a result, the Hollywood mannequin was almost immediately exposed as nothing but flair, hype, and hot air. The public had bought a product that did not perform. Marketing can do many things, but it cannot sell a product that people have tried and rejected. … Obama’s reelection problem can be expressed in one simple sentence: ‘Now, too many people know him.’” –columnist Monty Pelerin

Insight

“Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.” –American author Louis Lamour (1908-1988)

“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.” –Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

The Demo-gogues

They are not the same: “In some ways, [Occupy Wall Street protests are] not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party. Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them.” –Barack Obama

Echo chamber … from a Republican: “I think that if you look at the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Party folks, they come from the same perspective. They just have different solutions. What they’re saying is, ‘government is not working for me anymore.’” –New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Dumb Republicans: “Maybe [Republicans] just couldn’t understand the whole [American Jobs Act] thing all at once. So we’re going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation.” –Barack Obama

Shameless and crass: “The other thing I’ve hear from my friends who oppose this – this whole jobs bill – [is] that this is just temporary. Well let me tell you, it’s not temporary when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman. It’s not temporary to the guy whose store is being held up and there’s a gun pointed at his head, if a cop shows up and he’s not killed. … I wish these guys who thought it was temporary, I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.” –Joe Biden

Bailouts galore: “On several occasions now, we’ve seen, quite frankly, the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe, quite frankly, in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 – that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states. … For another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities.” –Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)

Questioning patriotism: “[Republicans] are not patriots, people who love this country want to see jobs created. … They’re not concerned about the economic well being of the country as a whole.” –Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA)

Questioning every other motive: “Republicans think if the economy improves it might help President Obama. So they root for the economy to fail, and oppose every effort to improve it.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Dezinformatsia

Non Compos Mentis: “The other thing [the Occupy Wall Street movement] needs, and I don’t want this to come out the wrong way – not needs, but what will happen – if we think back to the late 60s, what is the most stirring image of all the rebellion that happened? What do we remember? Kent State. Now, I’m not saying someone has to get killed. … I’m not saying a death. I’m just saying we are a visual society.” –MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch

An albatross for Obama: “Well, [the Occupy Wall Street protest] certainly is going to dovetail nicely into a big message that the president’s selling, which is that the wealthy should pay more. He’s also sort of picked up that banner of going after Wall Street and the banks, talking about unfairness that a lot of protesters that are complaining about. Unfairness in the economy and the tax code, in the ways of Wall Street with bank fees. … I think the president’s in a mode right now where he’d like to get out in front of this parade and really harness some of this energy.” –NBC’s David Gregory

Good question: “I want to ask you about the thinking within the White House. Yesterday at a press conference one of my colleagues asked the president to respond to something Mitt Romney said. The president said, ‘I didn’t realize you were a spokesman for Mitt Romney.’ Is the president feeling under siege from events right now?” –CNBC’s John Harwood to Obama’s Chief of Staff Bill Daley

Bizarre: “Herman Cain is pandering to white Republicans out there who don’t like black folks.” –MSNBC’s Ed Schultz

Newspulper Headlines:

Two Presidents in One!: “Obama Won’t Negotiate With Republicans on Jobs” –USA Today website ++ “Obama Says He Is Prepared to Work With Republicans on Jobs” –Bloomberg

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Would You Get a Tattoo for a Discounted Sandwich?” –Globe and Mail website (Toronto)

He’s Lost Middle America: “Obama Loses Hulk Hogan’s Support” –Politico.com

Too Bad Ted Kennedy Drove an Oldsmobile: “Chinese Keep Saab Afloat” –Deutsche-Welle website

We Blame George W. Bush: “Anita Perry Blames Obama for Son Quitting His Job” –Yahoo! News

Bottom Story of the Day: “Al Gore Backs Occupy Wall Street Protests” –TheHill.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Class warfare: “Here’s the Republicans’ problem. Everybody knows they’re not for the middle class. They’re mad at the president because the economy is in bad shape even though they don’t blame him, they’re still mad because they have to be mad at somebody. The president positioned himself now as a champion in the middle class, a champion of ordinary working Americans. That really is 99 percent.” –former DNC chairman Howard Dean

Wrong analysis: “Whereas much of the Tea Party’s programmatic ire seems directed at the very idea of government – and instead trumpets the virtue of self-reliance and the inexorable righteousness of the free market – Occupy Wall Street more sharply decries the collusion of corporate and political elites in Washington. … To the outside observer, that may seem foolishly utopian – and impracticable on a larger scale – but it’s a sign of the deep political commitment of many of the protesters gathering under Occupy Wall Street’s banner. They want to fix government, not escape from it.” –TIME magazine’s Ishaan Tharoor

Resumé embellishment: “He said he was going to end the war in Iraq. In a few months, we will have all our troops home from Iraq. He said he was going to up the ante and go after al-Qa'ida in a serious way in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is gone. The leadership of al-Qa'ida is on the run. So when you say he wasn’t prepared, maybe you should go ask Osama bin Laden if he thought he was prepared.” –Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod

Short Cuts

“After years of being exposed to the American media in all its forms, I’ve concluded that conservatives resent being lied to nearly as much as liberals hate being told the truth.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“Maybe the smartest thing the protesters, and perhaps of lot of other Americans, could do would be to pressure businesses to stop making a college degree the ultimate criterion for getting a job. If one considers where the so-called ‘best and brightest’ among us have taken this country in the last few years, one could make a compelling argument that a college degree is the most over-rated product on the planet.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“Occupy Wall Street protesters entered their third week of New York park sit-ins this week following a march down Broadway. Interviews with the protesters make two things very crystal-clear. They don’t know what they want and they want it now.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Warren Buffett’s company reportedly owes the IRS a billion dollars in back taxes. When he said he wasn’t paying enough taxes, he wasn’t kidding.” –comedian Jay Leno

Publisher’s Note: For anyone attending Game 1 of the World Series tonight in St. Louis – given that Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will be there – here’s an idea for a sign: “Forget the first pitch, throw out Obama!”

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team