Showing posts with label Somali pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Somali pirates. Show all posts

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Inattentiveness


President Obama’s management style is inattentiveness … fund raisers, golf, and his March-Madness brackets always have precedence over the business of governing.  This might be less of a flaw if our fearless leader had surrounded himself with competent managers instead of political hacks.  But, as it turns out, this administration failing is both good and bad.

We are seeing much of the malignant results in the Obamacare debacle, our still-suffering economy (despite the recent unemployment rate), and our many foreign policy disasters.  It seems to this observer that, any time a policy issue does make it onto Obama’s radar screen, he guides it into a mountain side.  These management flaws are too often adroitly covered up by his likable folksy nature and political spin that rivals Hurricane Katrina ... dished out by his legions of acolytes (including that common streetwalker, Jay Carney.)

But some beneficial results also occur due to his and his administration’s inattentiveness.  Many pockets of our government, when left to their own devices, still are achieving remarkable results … witness the Republican-led deficit reduction programs, our nation's drive toward energy independence, the development in Area 51 of a super-secret high-altitude drone (see: Foreign Policy Article) and, I do believe, the Bin Laden and Somali pirate killings. There are surely other national successes that have escaped Obama's heavy hand.  Perhaps if he were encouraged to play even more golf ...?

Thursday, April 30, 2009

ANGST!

Perhaps it is because of a need to fill the 24/7 news cycles of cable television but it seems to me that there is a growing number of stressful situations that are gripping the news reporting in this country. What once might have been a column on page B22 of the NY Times is now the hysterical lead on many internet blogs and cable TV talking-heads shows.

For instance, to mention but a few:
- Swine flu (or H1N1) -- In a normal year about 35,000 people die in this country from the flu. So far one person has died here from the Mexican swine influenza “pandemic” and yet our citizens are in a media-induced panic. Go figure.
- War in Afghanistan/Pakistan – Barack Obama has made this war a centerpiece of his '“Overseas Contingency Operation” (no longer “War on Terror”). So far we are not getting the daily casualty reports and dovish hysteria like we once did in Iraq under Bush. But I predict that, within 6-12 months, this conflict will be just as media assaulted.
- Somali pirates – This nuisance, it seems, could be wiped out with a few Predator drone strikes, but frustratingly lingers in the cable news cycle like a bad case of teenage acne.
- Banking crisis -- Since last October, this has been a headline grabber with the latest worry being the “stress test” which all banks recently passed (maybe not?).
- Unemployment – the media’s focus on the unemployment rate started under the Bush administration, but now the Labor Department's breathless monthly update has become a reason for the stock market to swoon.
- Nuclear proliferation in Iran/North Korea – The media is more than happy to go partners with Amadinajab and Kim Jong Il to keep their audiences in a perpetual state of angst over when and where these tin-hat dictators are going to drop the big one on the civilized world.
- Torture – the only thing more tortured than a water-boarded terrorist is the hypocritical rhetoric fanned by the American fourth estate.
- Disappearing U.S. auto industry – daily hand-wringing is the recipe for this naturally occurring bit of financial capitalism.
- Global warming – ‘nuf said.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Coast Guard

Al Sharpton has done it once again. He has called the Somali pirates a “voluntary Coast Guard”. See: Al Sharpton’s fantasy. Now, as if making up multiple media lies about Towanda Brawley, castigating the Duke University soccer team with racial invective, and standing by in 1995 while a Harlem crowd was urged to “Burn down the Jew store” which killed seven of its employees … was not enough. Now Al baby is yanking another warped fantasy out of his twisted mind. Why this man has one second of time on any cable news program is indicative of the degree to which TV producers will sell their souls for ratings.

Or are the Somali buccaneers “ecological warriors” as quoted in the Huffington Post (read further in the above hyperlink.) I guess they must just be trying to mitigate global warming? And we killed three of them for heaven's sake!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Chicken Hawk?

Since Barack Obama has never served in the U.S. armed services and since our current President also courageously gave the direct order on Saturday morning allowing the U.S. Navy to use deadly force if Captain Phillips (being held by the Somali pirates) was in imminent danger and since professional Navy Seal snipers shot dead three of these pirates on Sunday morning and since the Somali pirate organization has sworn future revenge on U.S. nationals for this action … can we now call President Obama a “chicken hawk” … like we did to so many non-veteran higher-ups in the previous administration who dared stir up the Islamic terrorist wasp nest? (Just to keep things balanced.)