Friday, October 11, 2013

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The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results  for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius" ("Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.") - Euripedes






This week's winner, Joshuapundit's The Shut Down, And The Madness Of King Obama    is my take on the current shutdown, the battle over ObamaCare and the debt ceiling  and the spiteful and dysfunctional behavior of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Here's a slice:

This shutdown is an amazing spectacle. And what it reveals about what America has become and about the state of our leadership would be sit-com worthy, except that it's happening in real life as I write this, and isn't funny in the least.

Government shutdowns are not all that unique - Democrat Tip O’Neill shut down the government eight times during the Regan administration, supposedly the Golden Age of 'bi-partisanship'. And during the Clinton years, the government was shut down twice after Clinton rejected the budget. And here's a fun fact. Popular mythology to the contrary, out of the 17 times the government has shut down, Democrats are much more prone to shut the government down than Republicans. The Democrats controlled the House during 15 of these shut downs and actually controlled both houses of Congress during 8 of them.

But what's unique this time is that this is the first time a President and a majority leader from his party have absolutely refused to negotiate at all. In fact, President Obama has been almost totally disengaged, except for fits of explosive rhetoric aimed at 'radical Republicans' and the Tea Party. In contrast, both President Reagan and President Clinton were very hands on and seemed to acknowledge and even enjoy at times the give and take of negotiating as part of the job.

President Obama, in contrast, feels he shouldn't even have to.

In an amazing instance of hubris, he actually went to the extent of finally inviting members of Congress to a meeting...for the sole purpose of telling them he wasn't going to negotiate! Thank you, good night.

Another thing that unique about this shutdown is the off the charts rhetoric and actions emanating from the White House and its allies in Congress and the media towards anyone whom has the temerity to try and even suggest that the White House might need to negotiate some kind of compromise.

The President, Harry Reid and the Democrat caucus are even refusing to allow bills to come to a vote that would fund things like pay for veterans, the National Institute of health, and PX's on military bases....while the president's golf course remains open.

Countless monuments and facilities that have never been closed in previous shut downs have been deliberately closed by the White House with an eye towards using this for political gain to demonize his opposition. It's almost an extension of President Obama's use of the IRS against those he perceives as his political enemies.

The monument in Washington to America's WWII vets, a monument funded by private donations had no fence at all around. On the day of the shutdown, veterans visiting the monument to their heroism found the monument blocked off by barriers and manned, as Senator Rand Paul quipped 'with more security than Obama had at Benghazi'. The vets, with the aid of a number of GOP congressman stormed the barriers.

Today, they were threatened with arrest and arrived to find the barrier wired shut to keep them out.

Even the D-Day beaches and cemeteries have been shut down. Along with a number of privately funded, privately run parks, who are being ordered by the White House to shut down 'to be consistent with National Parks services'. The president's private retreat at Camp David remains open, of course.

The president didn't even shrink at threatening seniors that they wouldn't receive their social security checks if he didn't get his way.

Federal agencies are deliberately blocking access to a number of government websites, something that obviously has nothing to do with any lack of funding.

Even the Grand Canyon has been closed down by Obama's diktat - after the State of Arizona actually offered to pay to keep it open.

The idea here is obvious - to make things unnecessarily painful for as many Americans as possible and try to spin it politically as the fault of 'those evil Republicans'. It is a despicable tactic, and it says volumes about the kind of person President Obama is.

President Obama has also had the help of a number of his minions in the media. Andrew Sullivan and Salon's Joan Walsh, among others have no problem putting the whole thing down to racism. Of course, that kind of attitude reveals a pretty racist mindset of its own, the belief that a president shouldn't be held to the same standards simply because he happens to be black, but that's meaningless in itself because I doubt even they believe racism is behind this. It's merely a convenient tool to use to demonize people they disagree with, and it resonates with people who want to believe it.

In fact, in a particularly funny exchange, MSNBC lunatic MartinBashir raved on the air about 'how long it was going to be until Obama was called an angry black man'...only to have the ObamaBot site 'The Root' call for the president to tap his inner angry black man!

Others have referred to the Tea Party 'jihad', the 'Tea Party shutdown', called Republicans 'radicals' 'deluded' 'bananna Republicans' arsonists and worse. And these are not people on the fringe,but mainstream writers working for mainstream media outlets.

The similarity in the venom of the rhetoric and messaging make it pretty obvious this is being co-ordinated out of the White House, like it always has been.

So aside from that, what's really going on here?

More at the link.


In our non-Council category, the winner was Dan Carter over at Richochet with When The Bleeding Heart Becomes The Iron Fist submitted by Nice Deb.It's an excellent summing up of what we're living through. Read it.


 OK, here are this week’s full results. Only The Mellow Jihadi was unable to vote this week but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners



See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.....'cause we're cool like that!
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