Sign Me Up

So, did you listen to Obama tonight? My wife told me to be quiet because I started grousing immediately when I heard he was delivering the speech from the National Defense University. Why not the Oval Office? He's the frigging president. He can do that. But, no, that would not be in line with his irrepressible desire to kiss the ass of the military at every opportunity. Notice how often this guy gushes about the saintly qualities of everything and everybody connected with the military. He begins tonight by gushing thanks to the "soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, members of the coast guard and their families." Good grief, man, would you stop it, already!

As you might have ascertained, I am stoutly opposed to this latest military adventure in the Middle East. Why is it in our national interest to get involved in a civil war on the side of people who we don't even know? Sure. Gaddafi is a bad guy, and he's doing nasty things to his people, especially when they get uppity. But what dictator doesn't? And where does it say it is the job of this country to ride in on the white horse every time and everywhere this happens? Who is asking how much this will cost me and great-great-grandchildren? What is the guarantee that we won't be sucked into this mess for years? And then there's the incredible irony of this recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize launching us off into another open-ended, expensive, ill-defined military operation in the Arab world.

And are you ready to send your son or daughter into the military and off to the Middle East to carry out one of our many missions in that part of the world? (Obama would gush for them at the drop of a hint that he would have to mention them at all.) They can help prop up the corrupt government of that despicable toad Kahrzi in Afghanistan, and while they're doing that they can kill a few Taliban and continue the search for that ever-so-elusive Obama bin Laden. Or they can join the 50,000 American troops still in Iraq. And now that the combat troops are gone from there, have you noticed anybody asking when all these thousands of others are going to be withdrawn? Or maybe they could join our latest and greatest adventure. Assisting the Libyans in their struggle for freedom from their resident dictator of 40 years.

More and more I come to share the views of James Kuntsler. I haven't heard his opinion of the speech but I cannot imagine he would approve. He is talking here about what a disappointment Obama has been for him, just in general terms.

And there's Obama at the tippy-top of it serving like a department store mannequin with a Department of Justice that someone has hung a "gone fishin'" sign on. I voted for him in 2008, and I want to start a movement in whatever's left of the Progressive core to get rid of him. Being a decent, presentable fellow with a nice family is just not enough. Even his vaunted speech-making abilities have gotten on my nerves. If I hear him say "make no mistake" one more time, someone will have to restrain me from kicking in the flat screen TV. [Amen, brother!!] Obama, it turns out, is the mistake.

Is he ever! Sign me up for the Greens, the Progressives, or whatever party, no matter how small and no matter how hopeless their chance at success. Just so long it will stand up and say no to all this madness. This country is just lurching along. Stumbling, staggering. There was a colorful expression that I learned working for the DoD all those years. It was something you wanted to avoid, i.e., "tromping on your foreskin." I get the idea that this is what Obama's doing. That's what this whole country is doing.
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• Some Questions About Obama's Speech (tnr.com)