Chronicle

The Foundation

"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

"A conversation between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was caught on a microphone that neither man realized was live. 'On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved,' Obama said. 'But it's important for [incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin] to give me space ... This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.' 'I understand,' Medvedev responded. 'I will transmit this information to Vladimir.' ... This unfortunate hot-mic exchange will have security implications, and it will surely sour our relations with allies in that part of the world. But as much as America's allies might be angered by Obama's words, Americans should be even more so. Their president -- the man charged with conducting America's foreign policy and overseeing its defense -- told another world leader that he is willing to make concessions on an important issue once he has finally and permanently escaped accountability to them. ... Set aside the important question of missile defense -- Obama was a skeptic on that long before he ran for president. This magic microphone moment calls into question Obama's concept of government service. If he is acting in Americans' interests, why must he hide his intentions until his second term? The incident also suggests a rather dim view of American citizens -- as rabble unable to grasp the pros and cons of issues like missile defense. ... This new incident with Medvedev ... sends a message about Obama. His real foreign policy is not necessarily the foreign policy he wants Americans to think he is conducting." --The Washington Examiner

Post your opinion: How do you rate Obama's handling of national defense?

Upright

"One of the big issues of this election will be what Mr. Obama might do in a second term once he is unchecked by any future electoral constraints. ... The worry is especially apt on national security, where Congress has far less power to limit Presidential policies. Mr. Putin wants to limit or kill U.S. missile defenses in Europe and elsewhere. Mr. Obama hasn't dared to cut such an arms control deal in his first term, but what about in a second? In 2001, he told a Chicago TV station that 'I don't agree with a missile defense system.' ... But one of the lessons of Mr. Obama's first three years is that when he said he wanted to transform America, he wasn't kidding. He probably meant what he told Mr. Medvedev too." --The Wall Street Journal

"If the Supreme Court agrees with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that the insurance mandate cannot be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce, it may be 'a huge symbolic victory for limited government,' as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett says. But it will still leave in place an absurdly broad reading of the Commerce Clause.... Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented from a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that upheld the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds, argued that 'just a minor tweak to the current statutory language would definitively establish the law's constitutionality under the Taxing Power.' ... In other words, Congress could accomplish exactly the same thing by wording it a little bit differently. ... We might wish taxes were used simply to pay for the government's legitimate functions, but that is not how things are. ... As currently interpreted, it also involves the power to manipulate us into submission." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"The facts of the Trayvon Martin case are still unclear. But that hasn't stopped the all-knowing, all-seeing President Obama from voicing his opinion of the situation. ... Obama implies that we all share some collective guilt for Trayvon's killing. ... [A]s Rahm Emanuel might put it, in every tragic death lies a liberal opportunity. When Communist Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK, liberals quickly blamed it on a supposed 'climate of hate'.... When nutcase Jared Loughner shot Gabby Giffords, the left quickly suggested that it was overheated rhetoric that had led to the shooting. When Islamists riot in the Middle East, President Obama suggests that it's all our fault for backing Israel. ... President Obama's rhetorical flourish was far more than a rhetorical flourish. It was an active attempt to change the narrative, to magnify the Trayvon situation into an 'America is racist, and you're part of it' meme." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"Crime is one of the results of the liberal agenda. Blacks are 13 percent of the population but are more than 50 percent of murder victims. About 95 percent of black homicide victims had a black person as their murderer. Blacks are not only the major victims of murder but also suffer high victimization rates of all categories of serious violent crime. Most often, another black is the perpetrator. ... The liberal agenda, coupled with courts granting criminals new rights, later caused the murder rate to double, and the rates of other violent crimes also began to skyrocket." --economist Walter E. Williams

Insight

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." --former French president Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

"They say hot air rises. And I guess it does. An airplane flying over the Capitol the other day caught fire from outside sources." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

The Demo-gogues

Unilateral disarmament: "American leadership has been essential to progress in a second area -- taking concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. I believe the United States has a unique responsibility to act -- indeed, we have a moral obligation." --Barack Obama

Blame game: "Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn't gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn't compete. But understand, this was not our program per se." --Barack Obama

Race bait: "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen." --Barack Obama

"[Trayvon Martin] was executed for 'WWB' in a 'GC.' Walking While Black in a Gated Community." --Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

"This is Treyvon Martin. Trayvon Martin's murderer is still at large. It's been one month, thirty days, with no arrest. I want America to see this sweet young boy who was hunted down like a dog, shot in the street, and his killer is still at large." --Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL)

Putting up the circus tents because of the Florida shooting: "I am sending a letter to the Justice Department to ask them to expand their investigation into the general application of these 'stand your ground' laws, whether they actually increase, rather than decrease, violence, and whether they actually prevent law enforcement from prosecuting cases where a real crime has been committed." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Over the top: "This Congress has put forth some of the worst attacks on women's health care that any of us have seen in our lifetime. In fact, the level of these attacks on women's health that we've seen make a lot of us wonder whether we're in the Dark Ages or in fact whether we're in the 21st century." --Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

Dezinformatsia

Legal gymnastics: "[W]e believe the government has the better of the policy and legal case for why the individual mandate is necessary and constitutional. ... The mandate is an indispensable tool for achieving the government's compelling goals of universal coverage and lower costs. Insurance companies would be unable to offer affordable coverage to those with preexisting conditions, for example, unless they also were guaranteed enrollment of the young and healthy customers who are less likely to consume health-care services." --Washington Post editorial

Talking points: "So if you force everyone to buy insurance that means the insurance companies have more money, right? So that they can afford to cover people with pre-existing conditions. So they can afford to do that." --CNN's Carol Costello

It's not a gun problem: "And this is where the problem with guns comes, because if you just -- are a person who's a little off and has some false sense of power, that's one thing if you don't have a gun in your hand. ... I'm saying the gun is the problem. That's what kills you." --ABC's Cokie Roberts

Just bizarre: "You know, right now, we're actually safer than we've been at any time since the end of the Reagan administration. Murder rates started to spike when Ronald Reagan came into office as the economy crashed, and they actually reached a peak in 1991, about three years after Reagan left office, before Bill Clinton was able to turn it around with, you know, by raising taxes. ... Crime was going up during the Reagan administration and I would submit to you that it was going up because he had destroyed the economy." --radio talk-show host Thom Hartmann

Politicize everything: "[Dick Cheney's heart transplant] has raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the vice president, in fact, should have received his heart against -- ahead of other people. ... When a patient Cheney's age receives such a scarce, life-extending organ, some doctors question whether hospitals are depriving younger patients, who typically survive longer after the surgery." --NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman (For the record, Cheney was on a waiting list for 20 months -- more than the average patient.)

Newspulper Headlines:

Out on a Limb: "Supreme Court Health Law Rulings Could Have Big Impact" --Sacramento Bee

Longest Books Ever Written: "Obama's Ego Trip" --The Washington Post

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Joe Biden in 2016? Not So Crazy" --Politico.com

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: "Are You Smarter Than a Joe Biden?" --Daily Mail website (Charleston, WV)

News You Can Use: "Shoot First, Claim Self-Defense Later" --New York Times website

We Blame George W. Bush: "Rangers Blame Fires on Moonshine-Carrying Man Riding a Lawn Mower" --Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader

Bottom Story of the Day: "Another Mind-Numbingly Predictable NYT Editorial" --National Review Online

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

Village Idiots

Taking credit where it isn't due: "Let me utter a sentence that Paul Ryan, if he lives to be a hundred, will never utter: I helped balance a budget. I worked in the White House. I put together a federal budget that was balanced, and it created the greatest boom in American history and global history. We did it in part by raising taxes mostly on the rich, cutting spending where it wasn't working, and investing in things that make us stronger and safer and smarter." --former Clinton adviser Paul Begala

Non Compos Mentis: "We want to be a Christian nation and we want to act in a Christian manner, but, oh, by the way, we don't believe in turning the other cheek. And we don't believe in love your enemy. And we believe in loading citizens and basically give them an opportunity to shoot people." --ex-Bush aid Matt Dowd

Belly laugh of the week: "Liberals are better at getting at the truth in complex, nuanced situations -- as are their psychological brethren, scientists. ... So part of the truce would require conservatives to recognize that if you want knowledge, you must go to a person ... that is adept at determining what it actually is. You don't just get to make it up for yourself and deny what actual experts say, because you're sure you're right." --author Chris Mooney in his new book "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science -- and Reality"

Short Cuts

"A video has surfaced from 1995 in which current Attorney General Eric holder says he wants to make guns unpopular. Unless, of course, you're a member of a Mexican drug cartel, then Holder will make sure you get your guns for free." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"[I]'m from probably the last generation to play with stupid toys like the Etch A Sketch and Lincoln Logs and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, because this was during the dark ages before the days of sophisticated video games that you can basically spend your whole life playing. ... [T]hen there's Barack Obama, and I think we've all had a toy like him. One we were super excited for and dying to have and about which we screamed, 'Mommy, you have to get it for me! You have to! You're racist if you don't buy that toy for me!' And then when we finally got it -- it was just boring and pointless and stupid." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"Occupy Wall Street announced it was broke, saying they 'don't have enough money to meet our recurring budgets.' Remember back when sitting around doing nothing didn't cost a dime?" --Fred Thompson

"President Obama visited the Copper Mountain Solar Panel Facility. This plant is in Nevada. It's more evidence that solar power is genuinely useful when you notice that every solar panel company is located in the home state of a powerful Democrat." --comedian Argus Hamilton

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