TOBY PETZOLD

Remember a few years ago when Bush the Younger told us that we need to do something about Social Security and meant it —especially for younger people? Well, the usual Democratic hacks screamed bloody murder and insisted that nothing is wrong with Social Security and that it doesn’t need fixing.

So the effort failed. A major underpinning of American working (and retiring) life was declared untouchable and we all forgot about it.

But now we are watching enormous banks, insurers, and mortgage underwriters fail as they have not since the early 1930s, if even then. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Well, as nauseating liberal frauds like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd told us, those giants were too big to fail. That’s because they were the guarantors of greater home ownership amongst the various minority groups and the economic underclass. Thus, in the name of politics, the American Taxpayer was put on the hook for many hundreds of billions of dollars —and now he is hanging thereby.

You think you won’t see more destruction of other untouchable giants?

In the end, all a person can really count on is his home and some pittance to pay the basics. My castle cannot be breached. If some new form of government is imposed upon me and this society in the months and years to come next, I will fight for what I have, but I will not depend on seeing anything at the end of my wage-earning life close to what I put into the Social Security system. It is all haywire and broken promises from here on in. Waste not, want not. Worship frugality and integrity and honesty. And eat at home.

Among the many bizarre and inexplicable things Joe Biden said in last night’s debate, I nominate his brief history of modern Lebanon as the shiningest example:

When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.

Has Biden gone mad? I ask this sincerely. Does he have some sort of organic brain disorder that would compel him to make such demonstrably untrue claims? Unbelievable. Read Michael J. Totten’s incredulous response:

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.

Moreover, I have never once heard anything about Obama calling for NATO intervention in Lebanon. When did such a thing happen? When the Second Lebanon War broke out in the summer of 2006, was Obama really calling for NATO to keep the peace in Lebanon? Call me crazy, but I think that’s utter nonsense.

Needless to say, Big Media is far too busy fellating Obamachrist to question Biden’s hallucinatory account. Equally needless to add, although I must, is that such claims, had they been made by Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, would have drawn derisive howls from such miserable fluffers as David Gergen and Anderson Cooper and the other Leftist craphounds at CNN. Did the anti-American reporter Michael Ware manage to raise an eyebrow at the news that we evicted Hizballah from Lebanon? Doubt it.

In a just world, Biden’s remarks would be regarded as even weirder than Gerald Ford’s claim in his 1976 debate with Carter that there was no Soviet domination of Poland.

But this isn’t a just world.

I still don’t understand why Obama doesn’t cite his chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge as executive experience. Is it not a good idea for him to bring it up these days? Thanks to Tom Maguire for the link to Doug Ross’ post about what Obama was saying on Chicago television back in 2000 when he first ran for Congress (emphases mine):

Interviewer: One of the criticisms that arises in connection with your candidacy is you simply haven’t been in the Senate very long, the State Senate. You have a limited track record in terms of time, what is your argument based on the one term that you’ve served so far? What makes you prepared for the Congress?

Obama: Well, I’m in my second term, but it’s true that certainly both Senator Trotter and Congressman Rush have been in elected office longer than I have. I can’t deny that. I would argue, though, that my experience previous to elected office equips me for the job. I have a background as an attorney, I’ve represented affordable housing organizations to build affordable housing, something that’s a major issue in the district.

I’ve chaired major philanthropic efforts in the city like the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, that gave fifty million dollars to prompt school reform efforts throughout the city.

Well, let’s hear more about it, Barry. You wanted to talk about your “chairmanship” of a board that included an unrepentant terrorist only eight years ago, but not now? Okay. There’s seven more weeks of this, though, so don’t think you can hide forever.

Oh, and I saw you a while ago on Bloomberg TV (natch) talking about how awful George W. Bush’s housing policies are and how awful it is that there weren’t more rules in place to keep credit tighter and keep these banks and mortgage corporations that are now folding on surer ground. But you can’t really mean any of that because you know full well that Bush was responding to the political need to get more Latinos and blacks invested in their own homes. He was committed to it. Were you in opposition? Horseshit. You don’t care about the hazards in mortgage lending because you were making money off of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It’s all underwritten by the taxpayers, anyway, so whatever. If people can somehow make Uncle Sam the co-signer on their loans, why, that’s just great.

If we have a Democratic White House and a Democratic Congress next January, there’s going to be a new socialism in this country. There’s going to be some lasting damage done to our economic credibility around the world.

Before liberals and other sorts of Bush-haters go too far off in their criticisms of this mortgage bailout business, they ought to remember that the President has long emphasized the social importance of more homeownership amongst black and Latino Americans. His policies may not have been as fiscally sound as they should have been, but they were plenty sound as it regards community-building in this country. Here in Texas, your house is your home is your castle. There’s a lot of stake a man’s got in his community if he owns property there, and that is something we should all want for as many of our neighbors as possible. Lets hope the current business cycle begins turning up and keeps more people in their houses and homes. Because people who work hard and spend wisely deserve a good and safe place to lay their heads.

Looks like the Joe and Valerie Wilson Show hit another dead end today:

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former CIA analyst Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and several former Bush administration officials for disclosing her identity to the public.

The Court of Appeals in Washington dealt another setback to the former spy, who has said her career was destroyed when officials blew her cover in 2003 to retaliate against her husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.

But it was Joe and Valerie who destroyed her CIA career by exploiting the opportunity she got him through her employment to try to publicly undermine the President’s case for war against a legitimate enemy. They doubled down on their stupidity with their disloyal liberal crap —and it’s gotten them nothing but the good opinion of people whose judgement isn’t worth the third bar piss of the night. People like the lunatic Larry Johnson and the anti-car tosser Duncan Black.

Guess it’s off to Hef’s mansion now, eh? 

The Speaker of the House announced today:

Americans know that thanks to the two oilmen in the White House, consumers are now paying $4 a gallon for gas. But what Americans should realize is that what the President is calling for is drilling as close as three miles off of America’s pristine beaches and in other protected areas.

The President has failed in his economic policy, and now he wants to say, “but for drilling in protected areas offshore, our economy would be thriving and the price of gas would be lower.” That hoax is unworthy of the serious debate we must have to relieve the pain of consumers at the pump and to promote energy independence.

How are Bush and Cheney responsible for the huge spike in the price of oil across the world? Could it be that the two most populous nations on Earth are seeing huge spikes in their own consumption of oil —and that this, above all else, is what’s driving these prices? It’s nothing but lunatic gibberish to blame these “oilmen” for the astonishing growth of China’s and India’s economies.

Were it not for the completely outmoded restrictions placed on domestic oil production and refining capacity by asshole Democrats, the United States would obviously be in a better position to adapt to the global increase in the price of oil —again clearly driven by the spike in Asia’s consumption.

Our country does not allow new oil refineries or new nuclear power plants to be built because of the anachronistic “concerns” of asshole Democrats. These restrictions weren’t an issue when we were paying a buck a gallon not too many years ago, but now? The lack of foresight on the part of environmentalists and their Gaiist fringe is now costing us all. Our economy is suffering not because we don’t have the resources, but because assholes and Edenists won’t permit their use.

Note that the same sacks of hippie shit who think themselves superior to Christians by virtue of Science are the ones who have no confidence in American drilling and refining technology. How much oil was spilled when Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Region? Not even enough to get Obama to Davos and back.

Why are the Democrats handing such a gift to the Republicans? I don’t know. But if Bush is smart, he’ll pull a Truman on these do-nothing liars this summer and make them reconvene the Congress to allow a vote on lifting these stupid restrictions. If there’s some Republicans in trouble who’d rather be back home campaigning, then let them make their case to their constituents from the floors of the House and Senate. They’ve got work to do and they can damned well do it from there.

Yesterday, Loudmouth Matthews told Scott McClellan that he liked his new book. “A hell of a book,” he said. In fact, the spittle-flecked nimrod observed:

It reads like my view of things.

Wow. Indictments don’t get handed down like that too often.

The hippies get all bent out of shape when you explain to them that George W. Bush isn’t actually spying on them, in particular. They so want to matter, but know they don’t. Therefore, the conspicuous cries foul, as though the pretense to offense were enough to make themselves into ”persons of interest” to McHitlerburton. Instead, these mostly-anonymous slanderers and libelers —raging against some cabal du jour of Jews, Texas oilmen, and Admiral Poindexter— are certain that their most recent blog post on FISA as a bill of right has gained them the attention of the Chimperor’s gestapo. These libtards are pathetic. Nobody cares and nobody is reading their anonymous shit.

Thanks to Charles Johnson, have a look at what the Village Voice’s Nat Hentoff is saying about the unqualified liar Barack Obama (emphases mine):

But after abandoning his pledge to abide by public financing, this apostle of cleansing the political culture is now going after the high rollers. As the July 3 New York Times reported, “Last week, the Obama campaign collected about $5 million at an event featuring celebrities in Los Angeles. The evening began with a dinner at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for more than 200 people who had contributed $28,500 per couple, or raised $50,000.” Then there is the current furor among a rising number of Obama contributors with wallets far below the $50,000-a-pop crowd about his change on the “compromise” FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that passed the House and Senate, and has been signed by the grateful president.

The flimflam candidate had assured his faithful enthusiasts that he would filibuster this bill (which will immunize the telecommunications companies that enabled the president to break the law in his once-secret warrantless wiretapping) that turned our privacy rights upside down and out.

Now, by dismissing the scores of lawsuits against these companies from Americans wanting to know whether they’ve been ensnared in this giant government-spun Web, the president and such supporters as Obama will have made it close to impossible to conduct meaningful investigations of the intricate nexus of the ways these telecommunications giants can collect leads to Americans with no connections to terrorism — and could continue to so long as they’re assured by a future lawless administration that national security demands breaking another law.

Barack Hussein Obama is now embarking upon a world tour that will be accompanied by the sort of world-class Big Media attention that only a visit to these shores by the Pope himself would garner. (John McCain, by contrast, has been to Iraq at least seven times that I know of and has received almost no publicity for it.) So it is clear to anyone with any modicum of intellectual honesty that the stampede to get this unqualified liar elected will utterly crush any doubts raised about his political integrity. These next few months —as Hentoff and Johnson and you and I will come to learn— will not be about honest examinations of Obama’s positions and beliefs, but about pushing the anti-American and internationalist Leftist agenda of post-racial this and post-partisan that. There is a danger in what is unfolding right now that is being ignored by the major networks and papers because of the general lack of courage demonstrated by an overwhelmingly white, liberal, and yankee propaganda community that doesn’t want to upset The Narrative.

Well, fuck The Narrative. I got the New Narrative, hippies: no crypto-Muslim black nationalist commies in the White House.

Ever. 

Here’s something from today’s Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

Mr. Obama has made a central basis of his candidacy the “judgment” he showed in opposing the Iraq war in 2002, even if it was a risk-free position to take as an Illinois state senator. The claim helped him win the Democratic primaries. But the 2007 surge debate is the single most important strategic judgment he has had to make on the more serious stage as a Presidential candidate. He vocally opposed the surge, and events have since vindicated President Bush. Without the surge and a new counterinsurgency strategy, the U.S. would have suffered a humiliating defeat in Iraq.

Yet Mr. Obama now wants to ignore that judgment, and earlier this week his campaign erased from its Web site all traces of his surge opposition. Lest media amnesia set in, here is what the Obama site previously said:

“The problem – the Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq’s political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq’s civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq’s political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.”

Let the arrogant schmuck dig himself in as deeply as pleases. When he finally deigns to visit the troops in Iraq, I wonder how many more lies he’ll be telling them to weasel out of his earlier miscalculations and negativity about their sacrifices for the future of the Middle East.