The Rudeness of Barack

Obama is a genuinely likeable guy- which is, I think, why his personal approval ratings significantly surpass the public's approval of any of his principal policies. When it comes to partisanship, however, Obama often goes beyond the pale in attacking his political opponents, often by attributing the most base motives to them. However, in his speech outlining his deficit-reduction plan, Obama was simply rude. Inviting Paul Ryan, the author of the GOP plan to address the long-term debt problem, to be present at his speech. Instead of being a straightforward proposal of his own plan, Obama launched into a strong and inaccurate denunciation of Ryan's proposals, accusing them of not being serious or courageous. One does not invite one's adversaries to a forum where they have no power of reply and then attack them. Doubtless it makes better theatre, and emphasises his own power to have his rival sit silently, front and centre, through a denunciation. It is, however, the method of the bully.

Jake Tapper has a helpful illustration of the Obama's hypocrisy, juxtaposing two statements made a year apart. As we have learnt, Obama will say the right thing about forgoing personal attacks and scaremongering until it becomes advantageous for him to do the same.

Obama & Reid's Mysterious Devotion to Abortion

It has been a very long time since I once tried to start this blog. This, then, is a second attempt. Forward to the content!

The recent deal in the United States over spending levels for the current fiscal year ended in a compromise. What I found interesting is not so much the analysis of who won, or who caved, but the order of priorities expressed by the White House and Senate Democrats. Amidst arguments over billions of dollars, the Democrats were most concerned with preserving funding to Planned Parenthood. According to the New York Times:

At one crucial moment in the game of chicken over a looming shutdown of the United States government, President Obama and the House speaker, John A. Boehner, faced off in the Oval Office. Mr. Boehner, a Republican heavily outnumbered in the room by Democrats, was demanding a provision to restrict financing to Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortions. Mr. Obama would not budge.

“Nope. Zero,” the president said to the speaker. Mr. Boehner tried again. “Nope. Zero,” Mr. Obama repeated. “John, this is it.” A long silence followed, said one participant in the meeting. “It was just like an awkward, ‘O.K., well, what do you do now?’ ”

Lest we consider that this but the obsession of a single man, we find the Senate Democrats placing the same inordinate importance on funding Planned Parenthood:

The deal breaker for Democrats had been the rider cutting off federal funds for Planned Parenthood. As a "senior Democratic source" told the Huffington Post on Friday, "The cuts will be hard for us to swallow, but we won't bend on Title X" -- that is, federal funding of Planned Parenthood. "Reid doesn't even have to go back to the caucus to ask on that one."

Reid said so himself Friday: "We are not -- we are not! -- bending on women's health."

On a logical level, Democrats claim that this funding (about $80 million) supports only the non-abortion activities of Planned Parenthood. Since the pro-life majority in the House rightly sees supporting the largest purveyor of abortions in the US as a moral issue, it is unquestionably the case that the Democrats could have saved billions in spending in other areas had they agreed to defund Planned Parenthood. Why not take the billions in spending in other areas? Simply put, abortion is the sine qua non of much of the liberal world. This inexplicable devotion of to the culture of death is an expression of the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of evil. We witnessed it in the last decade, when President Bush's restrictions on the funding of embryonic stem-cell research led California to put billions of dollars into such research - far more than would have been expected even with federal funding.