Chronicle

The Foundation

"We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals." --George Washington

Editorial Exegesis

"'You know, we don't trot out this stuff as trophies,' Obama said last May 4. 'Americans and people around the world are glad that [Osama bin Laden] is gone. But we don't need to spike the football.' Two days earlier, the notorious terrorist and backer of the 9/11 attacks had been killed in a raid for which Obama had given the thumbs-up. ... With his chances at a second term increasingly uncertain, Obama's campaign has begun hyping the bin Laden raid. The most overt instance is its release of an ad extolling Obama's decision, with Bill Clinton as narrator and featuring multiple pensive images of the commander in chief. The ad employs an out-of-context quote ... to question whether presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney would have shown the same gutsy leadership if the same opportunity had arisen and he was president. 'Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?' the ad asks. ... It is almost as though the president's campaign has forgotten the famous '3 a.m.' ad from the 2008 presidential campaign, in which Hillary Clinton tried to sow doubts about Obama's leadership and aptitude. Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, responded indignantly, comparing Mrs. Clinton to the occupant of the White House at the time, George W. Bush: 'It's ironic that she would borrow the president's tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points,' Burton said. 'We already have a president who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another.' No, but it looks like we got one after all." --The Washington Examiner

Upright

"Imagine if President Nixon had decided to base his 1972 re-election campaign on the boast that he landed on the moon. His predecessors tried and failed for eight years. It wasn't an easy decision -- what if something went wrong? But that's why you hire a president, to make those gutsy calls. Which path would George McGovern have taken? That's analogous to President Obama's effort to campaign on the killing of Osama bin Laden. His absurd braggadocio is turning one of the few successes to occur under his leadership into a political liability." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"[W]hen Obama swore to defend the Constitution, and therefore the nation, he did it in the dimension where the rest of us exist, where the economy appears to be headed toward its annual spring stall and an endless series of massive budget deficits threatens to unleash a financial crisis at any time. While big issues simmer untended, our leader is focused like a laser beam on trivia that benefit him politically but do the country little or no good. ... This president was sold as someone who could rise above Washington's partisanship. Instead, he's supervising it." --White House Dossier's Keith Koffler

"[T]he attempt to wean entire societies of 'junkies,' i.e. those addicted to government largesse, off the government teat has created havoc. Furthermore, and this is where it gets to the nub, societies structured to live off government, the ones where government is the major employer ... are now faced with the economic 'ripple effect' that the laying off government employees produces. ... [S]timulus is nothing more than an increase in the very same government debt -- and government dependency -- that brought Europe to its knees in the first place. ... The responsible solution to this whole mess is the one that few people are willing to embrace: weaning people off government dependency as quickly as possible, and educating them as to why it is necessary." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"You have to hand it to President Obama and his cabal of re-election strategists; they are masters of illusion. Their newly released Web video and its accompanying campaign slogan, 'Forward,' are science fiction-level fantastical. We're all familiar with Obama's penchant for deflecting responsibility and blaming his policy failures on George W. Bush, but after more than three years in office for Obama, it has gone from childish mischief to juvenile delinquency. This is a question for Guinness: Has any other president run for re-election against the record of his retired predecessor?" --columnist David Limbaugh

Essential Liberty

"Election Day 2012 will not be a presidential election. It will be a plebiscite. ... They will be participating in a plebiscite on the definition of America. ... The usual description of presidential elections -- 'the most important in our lifetime' -- is true this time. In fact, it may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America's founding. ... [Barack Obama] described the left's aim perfectly: to fundamentally transform America. It seeks to replace Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum. That is what 'fundamentally transform' means. In fact, those words are proof that American values and leftist values are fundamentally opposed to one another. ... For these reasons, this election is not just a choice between a Democrat and a Republican. It is between Americanism and leftism. ... The left's desire to transform America is the biggest issue. Barack Obama is to be opposed because he is a man of the left." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

Insight

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." --British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." --economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

The Demo-gogues

Chutzpah: "[O]ver the last three years, the tide has turned [in Afghanistan]. We broke the Taliban's momentum. We've built strong Afghan security forces. We devastated al-Qa'ida's leadership, taking out over 20 of their top 30 leaders. And one year ago, from a base here in Afghanistan, our troops launched the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The goal that I set -- to defeat al-Qa'ida, and deny it a chance to rebuild -- is within reach." --Barack Obama, the peacenik arm-chair warrior, claiming credit for goals set and foundations laid years before he was even a junior senator from Illinois -- goals that he campaigned originally to undermine and abandon

Narcissist: "And we've got me in the house." --Barack Obama, giving a shout-out to himself (see the nauseating video here)

Topsy turvy argument: "This contraception fight in particular was illuminating. This is a [Republican] party that says it prides itself on being rabidly anti-regulation. These are folks who claim to believe in freedom from government interference and meddling. But it doesn't seem to bother them when it comes to women's health." --Barack Obama

Such humility: "I just barely can hammer a nail into the wall. My wife is not impressed with my skills when it comes to fixing up the house. Fortunately right now I'm in a rental, so I don't end up having to do a lot of work." --Barack Obama addressing union officials

Clinton's fourth term: "I ran for president because we had lost our way since Bill Clinton was done being president. ... [S]o if you're willing to join us and finish what we started in 2008, and continue what Bill Clinton was doing when he was president of the United States, and if you are willing to share that vision of what America can be, I guarantee you we won't just win this election, we're going to make sure that we remind this world of ours just why it is America is the greatest nation on Earth." --Barack Obama

Predictions: "We're headed in the right direction. Unemployment continues to drop and those people who are unemployed, they're not gonna be voting for the party who wants to cut their benefits, cut access to food stamps, cut job training. The idea that Republicans are trying to help those who are unemployed is nonsense and I think that on this Election Day, those who have a job can credit the administration for stabilizing our economy and those who don't know that this administration is trying to put them to work." --Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)

Dezinformatsia

Bad advice: "[T]here's enormous human damage being done to this economy and it's all unnecessary. We have the knowledge. We have the tools. If we could get our politicians to move and do the right thing, we could be out of this very fast. The right thing is, actually, to spend more." --New York Times' Paul Krugman

Class envy: "Mitt Romney's wrong when he thinks that we are engaging in what he calls the politics of envy. No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has." --PBS's Tavis Smiley

Just because a leftist would do it... "We know that Ann Romney has herself had some suffering in the form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), she's also suffered with breast cancer. Do you think that [Romney's] intentionally using her to close the gender gap?" --MSNBC's Martin Bashir

No bias here: "[J]ust about every new poll of public sentiment shows that confidence in the news media has hit a new low. ... But have the media really become more biased? Or is this a case of perception trumping reality? In fact, there's little to suggest that over the past few decades news reporting has become more favorable to one party." --The Washington Post's Paul Farhi

"All that scrutiny of the press may suggest an inescapable conclusion: There's something wrong with the news media. All the time. Journalists have gotten that message, too. Reporters have heard the criticism from the right so often that they lean over backwards to be fair to them." --The Nation's Eric Alterman

Newspulper Headlines:

The Real Underdog Is the One He Ate: "Barack Obama: An Underdog Story" --NationalJournal.com

Advice From Jeremiah Wright's Former Parishioner: "Michelle Obama: 'Stay Away From the Haters'" --TheHill.com

Too Much Information: "Biden: 'The President Has a Big Stick'" --Washington Examiner

Longest Books Ever Written: "The Never-Ending List of Vice President Joe Biden's Verbal Gaffes" --TheDailyBeast.com

Out on a Limb: "Gas May Hit $6 Mark, or Maybe Pump Prices Have Peaked" --Autoblog.com

Bottom Story of the Day: "Winnipeg Garbage Pickup Days to Change" --CBC.ca

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

Village Idiots

Don't know much about economics: "Two years ago, we made history together by finally passing health reform. And because we passed this law, insurance companies will now have to cover basic preventive care -- things like prenatal care, mammograms, contraception -- at no extra cost." --Michelle Obama

Spinning like a top: "[The Republican] message is, 'You didn't clean up our mess fast enough.' Okay? As I said, we've had 11 consecutive months of positive economic growth, 25 consecutive months of positive private sector job growth. The Republicans, again, they want to return to the policies not of strengthening the middle class but instead of giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. They want to make health care and contraceptive decisions. They want to put those decisions in the hands of the boss that women work for." --Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs

D'oh! "My family, we lived in a little bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago over my aunt's house [and] my mom still lives in that house to this day." --Michelle Obama (Cute, except for one minor detail: Her mother, Marian Robinson, moved to the White House in March 2009 where she still lives to this day.)

Forward! "We are going the right direction under President Obama's leadership." --Bill Clinton

"The vision that we have for this country is the right vision, we all know that. And it's one that we can work towards together." --Michelle Obama

Belly laugh of the week: "[T]here is a false view that has become the conventional wisdom that we have too much partisanship in the country. That is not true. Frankly, the Democrats could probably be a bit more partisan in terms of sticking up for the stuff we actually believe in and not compromising so quickly. It's a problem of right-wing extremism and the Republican party being pulled so far to the right, and they have to deny science and they have to, you know, make up facts, and now it's become business as usual." --Van Jones

Short Cuts

Editor's Note: ABC's Jimmy Kimmel performed at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday night. Here are some of the best hit at Obama:

"I know you won't be able to laugh at my jokes about the Secret Service. Please cover your ears, if that's physically possible."

"Democrats would like you to stick to your guns. And if you don't have any guns, you can ask Eric Holder to get some for you."

"It's a thrill for me to be here with the president. A man who has I think done his best to guide us through some very difficult times and paid a heavy price for it. You know, there's a term for guys like President Obama. Probably not two terms."

"Mr. President, remember when the country rallied behind you in hopes of a better tomorrow? That was hilarious."

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