Over the past thirty years, a strange thing has happened on the path to the presidency.  With the advent of the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the proliferation of media outlets, potential presidential nominees can no longer control or establish their image in the minds of the public.

This is particularly true of someone whom the public does not know.  Barack Obama was a virtual unknown when he decided to run for the White House in 2007.  But he had three major characteristics that worked in his favor: 1) he was of African-American descent; 2) as Joe Biden put, it he was “clean and articulate”; and 3) he was a liberal Democrat.  He thus became the darling of the mainstream and entertainment media and nearly all the cable news outlets as well as many websites.  This set the stage for the image which settled into the minds of the majority of the public.

This image was of not only a candidate who could deliver a good speech, but also of a person who had a positive vision for America, had the interest of the people at heart, and because of his unique racial background could heal the age-old racial wounds in the country.  Obama did little beyond read his teleprompter-assisted speeches, which were full of inane platitudes, and hold his own in debates to achieve this lofty image in the minds of the people.  The overall media, Hollywood, and the entertainment press did the rest.

It is vital that presidential candidates, particularly in the Republican primary process, understand the vital importance of not allowing the overall media/entertainment cabal to establish their image in the minds of the public.  The vast majority of this group is hostile to any Republican, but in particular to conservative candidates.  

This is particularly important for anyone who is not well-known to the public and has not been on center stage for many years.

In this primary election cycle, virtually all the candidates with the exception of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were virtual unknowns, and all were easily defined and caricatured based on faux pas made during the campaign, or by personality quirks or actions and statements made in the past.  Nearly all the news reports and commentary were gross exaggerations or intentional demagoguery but nonetheless effective, as the individual candidate was unable to counter these innuendos and attacks.  Thus, these candidates were defined, and an image was embedded in the minds of the electorate.  All with the exception of Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have had to drop out of the race.

Now Rick Santorum, who was also a virtual unknown, is in the process of being defined.  His image is being cast in stone, as is often the case with first impressions.  The overall media alliance, with a major assist from the Democrat machine, is successfully painting a portrait of Santorum as a rigid theocratic ideologue whose primary motive and determination will be to move the country toward a theocracy.  That he is therefore unstable and extreme.  This is a grossly unfair and disgusting bit of character assassination, but it will be effective.

Why?  Because Rick Santorum is aiding and abetting this characterization by his willingness to discuss religious and social issues to the near-exclusion of what is the primary issue of this campaign: Barack Obama and what has happened to the country and its future under his leadership.  Unfortunately, Santorum has made many statements over the years that are easily obfuscated and taken out of context as well as confusing and difficult to explain whenever he is asked to justify them.  This is not to say that the social issues are not vital and important to the future of the country, but they are much too confusing and arcane when discussed within the context of theology and religion.

Santorum should have understood that he, if he ever became the frontrunner, would be defined as a dogmatic religious ideologue in a nation that is increasingly secular.  He did not, and he has allowed his dogged and determined campaign to now be totally focused on issues that are extraneous to this election cycle.  All the while, Barack Obama continues to sail on in calm waters while the Republicans have become bogged down in the swamp that is the agenda set by the Obama Obfuscation Alliance (the overall media, the Democratic National Committee, and the Obama re-election machine).

If it is not too late for Rick Santorum, he must, along with Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, stop being so easily manipulated and refuse to get snared in the traps set for him.  All of these candidates must focus on Obama, the economy, energy prices, unemployment, and the dangerous state of world affairs made worse by Barack Obama.  As for Santorum winning the nomination and beating Obama, that prospect has dimmed enormously, as the image of Rick established by the Alliance is becoming more set in stone by the day.

Via Wall Street Journal:

Republican Sen. Scott Brown holds a decisive lead over Democrat Elizabeth Warren in the race for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. According to a new Suffolk University/7NEWS (WHDH-Boston) survey, the freshman senator garners 49% of the vote — nine points ahead of his main Democratic rival. It’s the first time a poll put Mr. Brown in the lead since last fall. Suffolk University was also the first to show Mr. Brown ahead in 2010 when he upset state Attorney General Martha Coakley. That upset was driven largely by the independent vote. And the new poll shows Mr. Brown again heavily drawing his support from this group of voters. Among the 52% of respondents who identified themselves as independent, 60% supported Mr. Brown while only 28% supported Ms. Warren. . .

Fingers crossed. . . — Greg Pollowitz

The Spectacle Blog

My local newspaper, the News & Observer of Raleigh, today proffered another story on the upcoming marriage-amendment referendum in North Carolina. This piece was penned in the context of pending pro same-sex marriage legislation in Maryland and Washington State. The underlying theme is that North Carolina is bucking a national trend in putting a traditional marriage amendment on the ballot in May.

A key point that wasn’t emphasized in the N&O story, however, is the method by which same-sex marriage is meeting success in these states. Currently, six states (plus the District of Columbia) issue marriage licenses for homosexual couples: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Massachusetts, Iowa, and Connecticut do so through judicial ruling; neither lawmakers through legislation or the people through referenda have had a direct say.

New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont have OK’ed same-sex marriage through legislation. In two cases, the final vote was narrow — New Hampshire, 198-176 in the House, 14-10 in the Senate; New York, 80-63 in the lower house, 33-29 in the Senate. In Vermont, the winning margin was more significant: 100-49 in the House and 23-5 in the Senate.

In contrast, traditional marriage amendments have passed by popular vote in nearly two-thirds of the 50 states. The largest margin of victory was Mississippi (86 percent). California and South Dakota had the narrowest winning margins at 52 percent each. The average victory percentage is in the mid-60s.

Supporters of same-sex marriage argue that the national tide is swiftly turning on the issue. Recent polling indicates that they are correct. But in fairness, it’s important to point out that traditional marriage has been tested in 31 states through a popular vote and stood up every time. In contrast, an initiative to legalize same-sex marriage hasn’t once appeared on a statewide ballot. The only successes have come through judicial intervention or direct legislation.

The N&O — and left-of-center journalism in general — would have framed the story much differently if the situation were reversed: 31 states had legalized same-sex marriage through popular vote, and only six had banned same-sex marriage through judicial or legislative action. In that case, the N&O would have called it a few states squawking against the overwhelming will of the people. But because the scenario is the other way around, it’s a national tide.

Regardless of what one believes about the morality or immorality of same-sex marriage (or government’s role in marriage to begin with), freedom lovers can agree that it’s far better for these issues to be hashed out through a direct vote of the people or direct act of the legislature. That lends credence to the argument made by same-sex marriage foes in North Carolina who say it’s far better for voters to decide the issue — either pro or con — than for a judge or panel of judges to do so.

As to the argument frequently invoked by same-sex marriage supporters — that a majority shouldn’t vote on the rights of a minority — I point to the unborn child. What right is more fundamental than a right to life? Yet for 40 years, liberals have doggedly defended the notion that a woman’s right to her own body supersedes the unborn child’s right to life. There is no better example of a majority squashing the rights of a silent — and helpless — minority.

In response to the Obama administration mandate requiring Catholic institutions to pay for insurance covering contraception, U.S. Catholic bishops announced that they will not “obey” that “law.”

The bishops have gotten it wrong and backwards, and in doing so have yielded the moral high ground that is rightfully theirs.

Catholic bishops and the Church’s other clerical and even lay leaders have let this issue devolve into a debate about the right to use contraception when that is not even remotely accurate.  Proponents of religious and economic freedom are on the defensive.  Dictatorial authoritarians are defining the issue and defining their opponents as…well, dictatorial authoritarians.

However, it is the Obama administration that is refusing to obey the law.  The administration is the trespasser on rights.  Its people are, in fact, lawbreakers.

The law being broken is our Constitution.  The Constitution is America’s paramount law, meaning that not only does it trump statutory laws contrary to it, but it supersedes any Obama administration mandate in violation of it.

The Constitution, of course, creates a structure for how government makes, enforces, and adjudicates law.  Government lacks authority to operate in contravention of the Constitution because the Constitution is the law that governs government.

In the months running up to the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration has taken on clearly the largest and arguably the most powerful organization and network in the United States, the Catholic Church, with all its beneficent auxiliaries such as schools and hospitals, and all its adherents.

With such contempt for the law, and against such a broad swath of the electorate when his re-election is on the line, what makes anyone think that Obama won’t go on an even grander, more unprecedented rampage if he is elected in 2012, and does not need to worry about another re-election after that?

Why does any lawbreaker believe in his invincibility after successfully evading the law?

No president in American history has ever taken a step so grand — so egregious — against religious freedom, because up until now no president has ever shown so much contempt for the Constitution as the law that governs government.  President Obama promised in 2008 that he would transform America.  He could not do that without gutting our paramount law, which otherwise would restrict him.

Obama’s transformation of America is based entirely in what some have described as lawlessness.  That, however, is an inapt term.  One may be lawless without causing harm to others.  What President Obama is doing is violating our paramount law and, in doing so, causing harm to our individual, religious, and economic liberties.

When someone violates the law in ways that cause harm to others or the rights of others, that person is a lawbreaker susceptible to society’s punishment.  The law is intended to prohibit one person from harming others, and to punish those who violate this basic precept of civil society.

Obama is a lawbreaker unparalleled in American history not merely by the number of times he has broken the law, but by the number of victims of his lawbreaking.  While violations of our paramount law, the Constitution, do not come with the penalties of punishment like violations of other laws, that does not diminish the lawbreaking nature of Obama’s actions.

Catholic leaders have failed to approach the situation the right way.  Oh, sure, many have said that the contraception mandate is a violation of religious liberty.  But by saying they will not “obey” the contraceptive mandate “law,” they have acknowledged a false premise.  The mandate is not law.  It is a violation of law.  You cannot disobey a violation of the law.

This is not a situation of “render unto Caesar.”  Caesar was the law.  In the United States, we have the Constitution.  From that paramount law, all other laws to be obeyed flow.  But the Constitution is unlike all other laws governing the people.  The Constitution was written to govern government itself.

Once we begin to approach all situations from that perspective, our outlook and our responses change.

Catholic leaders assuredly want to follow the law and the dictates of their faith and consciences.  Many Catholic leaders are by nature non-confrontational.  However, history has been unkind to Catholic leaders who failed to confront wrongdoing and address it in appropriately moral but tactically aggressive ways.

As a lawbreaker, Mr. Obama is unworthy even of disobedience, for that would imply a legal and moral authority that he himself has ignored.  No, Catholic leaders must treat Mr. Obama as the one who has disobeyed the law.

Richard A. Viguerie and Mark J. Fitzgibbons are co-authors of The Law That Governs Government: Reclaiming The Constitution From Usurpers And Society’s Biggest Lawbreaker, available at ReclaimtheConstitution.com.

The Spectacle Blog

The Supreme Court announced today that it will take up its first major affirmative action case since Grutter v. Bollinger. In Fisher v. Texas, a white student named Abigail Fisher said she was rejected by the University of Texas on the basis of her race.

Supporters of racial preferences fear that the stars are aligned in Fisher’s favor, with a conservative majority that could conceivably discard Grutter. “There thus seem five votes – Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito – to overrule Grutter and hold that affirmative action programs are unconstitutional,” the New York Times quotes Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, as saying in a book titled The Conservative Assault on the Constitution. (Never mind that Grutter is a Sandra Day O’Connor concoction that oddly decides something can be constitutional for 25 years before the justices get to reconsider).

Elena Kagan, an Obama-appointed justice in the liberal bloc, will recuse herself from the case because of her past role as solicitor general.

The geographic concentration of much of President Obama’s political support in a few large Blue States and urban areas means that he could be defeated for re-election this November even while winning the popular vote.  What few seem to have seriously considered so far is how daunting the present shape of the political battlefield actually is for the President on a state-by-state level, and what that means when it comes to using national tracking polls as a metric to guess who would win a Presidential election held on any given day.  If you look closely enough at the numbers, it becomes clear that it is both mathematically and practically possible for the right Republican candidate to assemble a majority in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by as much as 5%.

Let’s travel back in time to 2008.  Obama won the popular vote with a margin of 7.27%.  He won the Electoral College 365-173.  In the intervening time, the post-2010 reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives means that, if the popular vote in 2012 were to be exactly the same, the electoral vote would instead by 359-179 thanks to population shifts over the last decade from Obama states to Republican ones. 

In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by about nine and a half million votes.  However, roughly 7.2 million of that margin came from huge wins in California, New York, and Illinois – states that he’s going to win in pretty much any imaginable scenario.  His massive margins in these states distorts the results of national polling by giving Obama a massive stash of surplus voters (equal to about 5.3% of the vote in 2008) who cannot shift a single Electoral Vote.  If, instead of looking at the national vote, you look at the margins in swing states it becomes clear that the 2008 result was actually much closer than it looks at first glance.

If we begin using the 2008 map with the 2012 distribution of Electoral Votes, the initial Electoral Vote count would be, as mentioned above, 359-179.

Moving 1657 votes from the Democratic to the Republican column in Nebraska gives the Republicans the vote from that state’s Second Congressional District and makes it 358-180.

A swing of 7089 votes in North Carolina gives us 343-195.

Switching 14,196 votes in Indiana changes the final result to 332-206.

118,225 voters in Florida would give that state to the GOP, putting the count at 303-235.

It would take only 131,112 votes to give Ohio to the Republicans, putting us at 285-253.

117,264 Virginians makes it 272-266.

And, finally, 73,281 votes would be enough to give Iowa (and the White House) to the Republican with 272 Electoral Votes to Obama’s 266.

In this scenario, by the way, Obama would win 8,624,332 more votes than the Republican nominee, giving him a victory in the popular vote of 6.57%.

Now, obviously, such a perfectly effective distribution of votes for the Republicans is unlikely even if it is mathematically possible.  However, the increasing gap between the deepest of the Blue States and the Red States — Obama is actually polling better in California now than he was in 2008 — makes national polling increasingly irrelevant in a Presidential Election. 

In fact, if we look at recent polling in swing states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, and Pennsylvania — most of which show the President either trailing Republican challengers or ahead but with anemic numbers in the low to mid-40′s — and contrast it with national polling showing Obama mostly in the lead in the mid to high 40′s it becomes hard to reach any other conclusion than that the result of an election held today would be an election where Obama wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College.

The big and unasked question, as I see it, is how Obama and his supporters would react to such a defeat.  If the President wins the popular vote while losing the Electoral College, will he accept the result and step aside or will he allow his supporters to attempt some sort of extra-Constitutional effort to perpetuate him in office?

I do not mean to suggest that Obama has the ability to install himself as some kind of dictator.  I have complete confidence that the United States Military would, rightfully and constitutionally, refuse any such orders.  Instead what I am suggesting is that, in the aftermath of a loss where he carried the popular vote, Obama’s supporters would take to the streets in an effort to overturn the results via some kind of “people power” movement such as we have seen overseas in Egypt, the Ukraine, and elsewhere in recent years with the aim of either intimidating some electors into changing (or not casting) their votes or forcing the Republican candidate to concede the Presidency.

Adam Yoshida is the author of “The Blast of War” and the forthcoming “A Land War in Asia” 

Via NYT:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Attempting to contain a violent reaction already gathering steam, the NATO commander in Afghanistan issued a fervent apology on Tuesday for foreign troops having “improperly disposed” of Korans and Islamic materials.

As protesters swelled in numbers at the gates of Bagram Air Base, where the incident occurred, Gen. John R. Allen released a statement apologizing to President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people.

“ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans,” the statement said.

“When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities.

“We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you … I promise you … this was NOT intentional in any way,” he said.

There were unsubstantiated reports circulating among the protesters of NATO personnel taking a load of Korans and starting to burn them.

What is clear is that Afghan employees on the base intervened to stop them, according to a report from an employee on the base and General Allen’s statement.

“I would like to thank the local Afghan people who helped us identify the error, and who worked with us to immediately take corrective action,” said the statement. . .

Fantastic. . . — Greg Pollowitz

There is a cliché in Washington.  There are two things you do not want to see made: sausage and laws.  To those we may add a third: Barack Obama’s decisions.

Americans were warned by his opponents that Barack Obama was unprepared to be president.  He had very little record to run on, and his one experience at being an executive was a failure — his hushed up history running and running through a hundred million dollars as the head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in Chicago.  He had a record of avoiding tough decisions (the “voting present” issue); he was just a celebrity who was not ready for the 3 A.M. phone call.  The presidency was not an “on the job” training program.

After three years we can judge those fears to be well-warranted.

There are many people who have problems with his policies.  Barrels of ink and billions of pixels have been used to criticize his agenda.  But surprisingly little analysis has gone into figuring out the mystery of how Obama actually goes about making decisions.

Fortunately, over the last few years journalists have been obsessing over Barack Obama almost as much as he has been obsessing over himself.  They have provided various vignettes that give us a disturbing picture of a man floundering in his own careless if not willful ineptitude.

Americans should have been alert to the paucity of his own record of accomplishment.  As a state senator he showed little interest in learning the intricacies of legislation.  Instead, his political mentor, Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones, allowed him to “bill-jack” the legislative work of others and claim it as his own.  This was a practice he continued as a U.S. senator.  He was unprepared to do the homework and heavy lifting — that was for others to toil over.

If there is one constant to Barack Obama’s life, it is his lack of a work ethic.  I never doubted that the Barack Obama had stellar grades in college and law school.  He surfed the wave of grade inflation that has probably always been a factor in his success.  This is pure speculation, but the reason why he never released his transcripts was probably because they would have revealed that he took easy left-wing courses that would have reflected poorly on his work ethic.  The laziness has persisted.

A leader has to be well-informed, consult with good advisers and experts, read and research, and make a decision.  He has to prepare himself to be a leader.

We saw signs during the campaign that he had little interest in the issues of the day.  The late Dean Barnett wrote in the Weekly Standard in a column titled “How Smart is Obama”:

And there’s also what appears to be a lack of intellectual curiosity. Abe Greenwald of Commentary’s blog calls our attention to this nugget from an enjoyable New York Times profile of Obama “body man” Reggie Love:

Along the way, some unofficial rules have emerged between the candidate and his aide. From Mr. Obama: “One cardinal rule of the road is, we don’t watch CNN, the news or MSNBC. We don’t watch any talking heads or any politics. We watch ‘SportsCenter’ and argue about that.”

So how, pray tell, is Obama staying informed about what’s going on in the world? When he’s pressing the flesh at crummy rural diners and speaking before 75,000 adoring acolytes, he’s talking, not listening. Don’t you think a guy who might be president would be obsessed with world events? Don’t you think that obsession would have driven him into the race? And don’t you think as a potential wartime leader he might be using his downtime to study, just in case he wins?

Obama has made a habit of coming across like a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That’s bothersome enough, but what’s more worrisome still is how comfortable he is with not knowing what he’s talking about, and how convinced he seems that his rhetorical flourishes will obscure his ignorance. That strategy may work on the campaign trail, but it certainly won’t help him govern.

Perhaps that was why he could so readily dismiss Iran as being a “tiny country” that posed no threat.  And that was just one of many statements that had a Republican made them would have been broadcast far and wide.

If anything, his television-watching has gone downhill.  Now he watches Spongebob Squarepants and Hannah Montana — albeit with his daughters (a fact that calls into question his fathering ability but it is a step above having them hear Jeremiah Wright’s racist and anti-American rants).

Alas, how true Barnett’s prophecy regarding Obama’s ignorance and inability to govern has been.

Ron Suskind’s book Confidence Men portrays Barack Obama as being confounded by his duties as president.  Some of the scenes depicted by Suskind would be comical if they were not so tragic for America.

For example, when Obama’s experts assembled to discuss the scope and intricacies of the stimulus bill, Barack Obama was out of his depth.  He was “surprisingly aloof in the conversation” and seemed “disconnected and less in control.”  His contributions were rare and consisted of blurting out such gems of wisdom as “There needs to be more inspiration here!” and “What about more smart grids” and — one more that Newt Gingrich would appreciate — “we need more moon shot” (pages 154-5).

Suskind writes:

Members of the team were perplexed…for the first time in the transition, people started to wonder just how prepared the man at the helm was.

He repeated a similar sorry performance when he had a conference call with Speaker Pelosi and her staff to discuss the details of the planned stimulus bill.  He shouted into the speakerphone that “this stimulus needs more inspiration! Pelosi and her staff visibly rolled their eyes.”

Presidential exhortations more befitting a summer camp counselor will evoke such reactions.

Perhaps if Obama had been a better leader he would have been able to assemble better advisers who could have prepped him for the rigors of the office.  He was counseled by Washington veteran Erskine Bowles to “leave your friends at home. They just create problems when you get to Chicago.”  So what did Obama do?  He ignored Bowles (presaging how he later ignored the Simpson-Bowles commission on fiscal responsibility).

As Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic:

He brought Axelrod and Jarrett to the White House, made Emanuel chief of staff, and eventually replaced Emanuel with Daley. The rap against Obama’s White House management style became that he was too dependent on old friends and fellow Chicagoans.

Almost all have left — as have a number of others.  But who stayed?  Valerie Jarrett — his own Svengali — who plays a key role in Obama’s decision-making process.  Should President Obama rely upon her in making decisions?  Her own record as a businesswoman is flecked with failure.  Matthew Continetti recently characterized her, with good reason, as “The Worst White House Aide,” who has a perfect record of giving bad advice.

Should we be surprised by Barack Obama’s choice of his closest adviser?  Lest we forget, he described Jeremiah Wright as his “moral compass” and “sounding board.”

This reliance is a particular problem because Barack Obama runs the most insular White House in memory.  He rarely reaches out to members of the other party for their advice and suggestions (despite the fact that they represent millions of voters), and when he does so, it is mostly for photo-ops.  The sessions are not productive.  For instance, in January 2009 he met with congressional leaders to discuss the stimulus package.  Senator Kyl questioned the plan.  Obama’s response was “I won.”  A year later there was another bipartisan meeting to discuss health care reform where Obama gave the Republicans short shrift and unequal time because, he said, “I’m the president.”

Republicans should not fret, though, since Democrats are also frozen out.  Barack Obama does not reach out to them for their ideas or input.  Liberal Washington Post columnists noted his refusal to touch base with fellow Democrats.  In her column “The Where’s Waldo Presidency,” Ruth Marcus noted the “startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action — unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issues of the moment.”  Memo to Marcus: check the links, the basketball court, or the East Room jazz club.

His having remained aloof from budget negotiations and his absence from supercommittee talks made for such an abdication of leadership that they earned a rebuke from Erskine Bowles.  And so it goes — the Invisible Man hiding in the Oval Office or reveling in adoration showered on him at expensive elite fundraisers.

Compare and contrast this behavior with President Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, or John Kennedy.  They were all policy wonks — able and eager to reach out to experts and politicians from across the aisle, day or evening and, in the case of Lyndon Johnson, even when he was in the bathroom.  Instead, Barack Obama seems to avoid interaction with those who could help him make wise decisions.

Indeed, he showed a similar aversion as a law lecturer at the University of Chicago.

There was a revealing New York Times report during the 2008 campaign that portrayed him as a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School who refused to have intellectual repartee with other teachers.  He would just walk right by other academics who were chatting about the law.  There seems to be a pattern of someone who wants to avoid having his intellect scrutinized (tellingly, of course, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship).  Is he fearful of revealing that he is not the grand intellect that besotted journalists have proclaimed him to be?  Is this why he is tethered to the teleprompter?  Do his handlers know something we do not?

Certainly when he goes off the prompter he says some truly ridiculous things (Hawaii is in Asia, there are 57 states in America, “spread the wealth”).

Despite his early boast that “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors,” the reality is far different than the claim.  That might explain why he just decided to stop receiving daily economic briefings early in his presidency, despite the pain and suffering that millions of Americans have experienced during his reign, and why he would just walk out on Stephen Chu, his energy secretary, after only a few slides had been shown (the rudeness punctuated with “Steve, I’m done”) that explained the complexities of the BP oil spill?  After all, when one “knows more about policy” than mere mortals, who needs to waste one’s time with experts — even Nobel Prize-winning scientists?

Why should taxpayers even fund experts when we have an omniscient president making up fact-free policy?  Perhaps we should just lay off thousands of people who toil away in the federal government trying to find facts.  American taxpayers can just rely on Barack Obama.

Indeed, a good rule of thumb to judge Obama is to take his boast, reverse it, and then apply it to Obama.  He seems out of his depth when discussing policy, so he avoids press conferences and becomes irate during the rare times a non-fawning journalist poses a challenging question to him.  Or he is just reduced to “gibberish,” as Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson described his answer to ABC News’s Jake Tapper over a question regarding his broken promise to reduce debt .

Or he relies on fluff as deep as “hope,” “change,” and “yes we can,” as he did during the campaign.  Now he depends on “fat cats” and “fairness.”  They are easy to remember and are not as challenging for him as being able to comprehend and explain actual policy.

His vanity leads to an aversion to showing how unprepared he is to be president.

The best ticket in town would be a debate between Congressman Paul Ryan and Barack Obama regarding the huge deficits and debt Obama has imposed on us and our children.  Ryan has a fluency and knowledge of these vital issues that dwarf those of Obama.  Instead of cooperating with Ryan, he ambushes and insults him in public and for good measure later insulted opponents of his job bill for being unable to understand the “whole thing at once” so “we’re going to break it into bite-sized pieces.”

Psychologists would call this “projection.”

This refusal to do the homework necessary to make good decisions is worrisome on several levels.  It led to not only legislation being outsourced to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but also to foreign policy decisions that seem to come from either the Arab League or the United Nations, or from some sudden inspiration of his disconnect from reality.  After all, the path of least resistance is just to do nothing, “lead from behind,” or let others do the work.  At times, he appears to have adopted a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach that may conflict with the facts and with statements made by his own officials but has the virtue of avoiding the mere prospect of having to make a decision.

Did he not do his research or ask experts when he violated, for example, agreements made with Israel regarding settlements?  Or seek counsel when he broke agreements with East European allies to station missiles on their land as part of his feckless reset with Russia?  Or violated the War Powers Act by waging war in Libya?

Perhaps ignorance is bliss — as blissful as a sunny day on the fairway.

Now, of course, he has gone full-bore into campaign mode, and his decisions are geared to improving his own re-election prospects (the omnipresent David Plouffe, Obama’s senior political adviser, has become a de facto decider-in-chief).

One can point to myriad examples that prompt inquiries along the lines of “how did he make that decision?”

Yet, Barack Obama claims that he has gotten better as president.  One can certainly hope so.  But recent evidence does not show so.  Ryan Lizza recently wrote a New Yorker column that gave readers insight into how the president makes decisions, and it is as unappealing as watching sausage being made.  Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller distilled the essence of Obama’s decision-making:

The President’s decision-making method…seems to consist mainly of checking boxes on memos his aides have written for him. … He’s presented with a list of $ 60 billion in cuts to his core stimulus policies, and writes “OK.” … He “authorize[s] his staff” to plan a likely-to-be-useless “bipartisan ‘fiscal summit,’” asks “what are the takeaways” is told he could “ask .. for continued dialogue,” and doesn’t write “this is all BS” and cancel the summit, which in fact proves useless. … He’s given a memo on cutting government waste and writes “This is good stuff-we need to constantly publicize our successful efforts here.” Does he later notice that either the efforts or the attempt to publicize them were wildly ineffective?  … He’s asked to check a box saying whether he wants to fund his “child nutrition agenda” out of the money for community colleges. … He’s asked about including medical malpractice reform in his health care bill, and writes (“in his characteristically cautious and reasonable style”) that “we should explore it.”  … He’s presented a plan for a watered-down tax on multinationals or a very watered down tax. He writes “worth discussing.” 

Finally, he’s presented with a classic three-box-con memo-two extreme boxes (big new jobs package, big new deficit package) and a safer middle box (“smaller, more symbolic” deficit efforts), a matrix clearly designed to get him to choose the middle option. He chooses the middle option.

His handlers have been reduced to managing the president in a way more appropriate for a child in grade school.

Kaus is incredulous that Obama can’t just “be an executive who spend his days checking boxes, accepting the choices presented by his aides, never reaching outside them through unconventional channels or reaching unconventional thinkers, never throwing over the framework with which he is presented.”

Why not?

Can’t the presidency be a multiple choice exam?  Those are always the easiest tests especially for unprepared people in over their heads — as President Obama has proven himself to be.

Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s low-cost strategy during the holidays both helped and hurt its performance in the fourth quarter: The world’s largest retailer reported an almost 15 percent decline in profit, but its namesake U.S. business continued to draw in more shoppers.

During the period, Wal-Mart guaranteed shoppers it would give them the lowest price on a given item, no matter when they bought it during the holiday season. That resulted in its first gain in customer counts in several years.

But those efforts also came at a cost. The company said that operating income growth for the quarter was slower than the rate of sales for Wal-Mart’s U.S. business as gross profit margin declined.

Wal-Mart shares dropped $ 1.88, or 3 percent, to $ 60.60 in premarket trading Tuesday.

“Core customers remain cautious about their finances,” said Mike Duke, president and chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in a statement. “They rely on Walmart’s (everyday low price) promise to help them manage through today’s economic challenges.”

Wal-Mart’s results are considered a bellwether of consumer spending because the company draws nearly 10 percent of all nonautomotive spending in the U.S. So the fact that it’s re-energizing its business is a positive sign for the retail industry and the economy as a whole.

The discounter, based in Bentonville, Ark., said Tuesday that net income was $ 5.16 billion, or $ 1.50 per share in the three months ended Jan. 31. That compares with $ 6.05 billion, or $ 1.70 per share, in the year ago period.

Including results from benefits from certain tax matters and real estate transactions, Wal-Mart recorded $ 1.51 per share for the latest quarter. The year-ago results included benefits from discontinued operations; excluding those benefits, earning were $ 1.41 per share.

Net sales, excluding membership fees from its Sam’s Club division, rose 5.9 percent to $ 122.28 billion.

The company’s namesake business had a 1.5 percent increase in revenue at stores opened at least a year, its second consecutive quarterly gain after facing a more than two-year slump. Analysts had expected a 1.6 percent gain.

Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $ 1.46 on revenue of $ 123.9 billion.

By division, Wal-Mart had its fastest growth from its international business, which increased 13.1 percent to $ 35.49 billion. The company’s Sam’s Club division enjoyed a 6.8 percent increase to $ 14.01 billion. Wal-Mart’s U.S. business had a 2.4 percent increase in U.S. sales, posting revenue of $ 72.79 billion.

Overall, the company’s U.S. namesake business had a 2.1 percent increase in revenue at stores opened at least a year. That included a 1.5 percent increase at Wal-Mart U.S. stores and 5.4 percent increase at Sam’s Clubs. The company noted that it saw an increase in customer traffic, reversing more than several years of declines in customer counts.

Wal-Mart’s U.S. namesake business, which accounts for 62 percent of the company’s total revenue, had suffered because of the economic woes hitting its low income shoppers, who have been having a hard time stretching their dollars to the next paycheck.

But its business also was hurt because of mistakes it made on prices and selection. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., strayed away from is bedrock philosophy of “everyday” low prices, and in late 2010, switched back to emphasizing low prices across the whole store, instead of promoting select items.

Reclaiming its reputation as the lowest-prices leader is critical to sustaining the upward sales trend. The company also has restored thousands of products it culled during an effort to de-clutter its stores.

For the current quarter, Wal-Mart expects revenue at stores opened at least a year to be anywhere from flat to up 2 percent.

For the current year, it expects earnings per share to be $ 4.72 per share to $ 4.92 per share. Analysts had expected $ 4.90 per share.

(Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

The Spectacle Blog

Manny Ramirez has signed a minor league contract with the Oakland Athletics.

Ramirez abruptly retired early in the 2011 season during a brief stint with the Tampa Bay Rays after testing positive for performance enhancing substances for a second time.

In January, Ramirez applied for and was granted reinstatement by MLB. Should he make the team, Ramirez will have to serve another 50 game suspension for his second violation. A third violation would result in a lifetime ban from MLB.

Despite his mercurial nature, this is a low risk signing for Oakland as they are only paying him $ 500,000. As he approaches 40, I don’t expect he’ll do much for the Athletics. But if he is productive, it’ll be a bargain.