Saturday, April 11, 2015

What? A celebrity with manners?


If you, like I, have all but written off the millennial generation as a sorry and self centered lot of underachievers take a good look at Jordan Spieth. The pride of St. Monica's Catholic High School in Dallas, Texas is going into the final round of the Masters 4 strokes up on his nearest opponent. His third-round 70 today and set a Masters 54-hole scoring record at 16-under 200. Tiger Woods was at 15-under 201 after three rounds in 1997 and Raymond Floyd was at the same number in 1976. This is his second appearance at the Master. He has played a total of 7 rounds and lead in 6 of those.This kid excites me the same way Secretariat and Bobby Fischer did.
No matter the outcome tomorrow Spieth has already raised the standard for public deportment among professional athletes. What a breath of fresh air! He can get through a lengthy interview without once invoking the first person singular pronoun which is all the more astounding considering that he is a Texan. He refers to his new mentor, the legendary Ben Crenshaw as Mr. Crenshaw and states that his special needs sister is the most important person in his life.
On the course it's not just his skill that draws envy but rather his poise and self control. He makes Charlie Rose look like a bundle of nerves and not just when he is playing well. A blown two foot putt is followed by a wince and then and grin and comment to his caddy and then is seems to be forgotten. He is the most self disciplined man in public life today.
He had to rent two houses at Augusta. One where he could sneak off to for a good night's sleep and another for his parents and grandparents, siblings and six friends from high school to party in. The only house rule is golf cannot be mentioned in his presence.
This kid could be as good as he looks!

Friday, April 10, 2015

Joel Gilbert's "Dreams From My Real Father" Thoroughly Discredited

I previously reviewed Joel Gilbert's "Dreams From My Real Father"
http://obotomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-dreams-from-my-real-father.html#comments  I compared Gilbert with Oliver Stone. I never thought of Stone's "JFK" as convincing but it was compelling. For all of its flaws it was better than the Warren Report. Gilbert's video for all of its shortcomings at least looks at Obama's murky background. The rest of the media divert their eyes.

At "American Thinker" Jeff Lipkes thoroughly dismantles DFMRF, even challenging Gilbert's credibility.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/whos_your_daddy_another_look_at_joel_gilberts_emdreams_from_my_real_fatherem.html

This is a welcome review. The Left has abandoned the premise of truth but we cannot afford to do so. I don't want a conservative/tea party/constitutionalist version of Barack Obama. I don't want someone who will lie for our cause. My political philosophy and philosophy of life is premised on truth. If we choose our beliefs on their aesthetic value we will make poor choices. Truth, often inconveniently, is on our side.

So if Stan Dunham was never a CIA agent and his daughter was not knocked up by a card-carrying Communist, then why in the world was an adolescent Barack Obama introduced to this dangerous mind? Even in the free spirit 1970's in free thinking Hawaii, most grandparents would not encourage a relationship, a mentoring if you will, with Frank Marshall Davis. This is one of the questions about Barack Obama I would love to see answered.

So we now know about as much about Barack Obama's background than we did in 2008, which is to say, we know almost nothing.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Idolatry Versus Ideology

Idolatry Versus Ideology

The news media do not usually cover news media. They are a club. They are perhaps the most insular profession in America. There might be pecking orders and rivalries and jealousy but they are good at keeping their grievances in-house. They like to refer to one another as colleagues.

Bernard Goldberg reminds us that there is no secret handshake. None is needed. In this finely-screened guild, dissidents are not recruited or welcomed. They often graduate from good schools but nonetheless they do have dimwits in their ranks. They are not necessarily stupid but they will consciously promote stupidity when duty calls.

Members of the news media are haughty and cavalier and every word in the thesaurus for both haughty and cavalier accurately describes them. No exceptions. They are parochial and provincial and every word in the thesaurus for both parochial and provincial accurately describes them. No exceptions.

Smugly superior, tirelessly loyal to their clan, secular in the extreme. Secularists are notoriously vulnerable to cult leaders. Offbeat religions have much better success recruiting at Harvard or Yale than at Brigham Young or Oral Roberts. The Cult of Obama would find the ranks of the secularist media to be their Happy Hunting Ground.

Observers might denounce media bias but they often mistake loyalty to proper noun for loyalty to principle. In the case of Barack Obama, idolatry is often mistaken for ideology. The Obamacist media practice unconditional love for their beloved leader.

A purely objective press has never existed. We have discussed press prejudices and how they have evolved over time. Yes, there has always been a bias against dissent, an endorsement of pack journalism for the good of the pack. What was absent until 2008 was an ongoing consensus on behalf of matters related to one man and his agenda.

The news media might have been chummy and sniffy but they were also independent. Even during times of war—World War II being the possible exception—news media expressed diverse viewpoints. That is no longer the case.

Mysticism is unifying. Reason is divisive. “ So says Thomas Szasz. Ideology has its limits. An idea as simple as “the government should help the poor” immediately encounters an obstacle course. How do we help the poor? Should we first help those who help themselves? Should we first help those who cannot help themselves? Should we first help those who will not help themselves in hopes of lifting their spirits? Should we help poor people find work or just give them cash? Would it be better to give poor people food stamps and free education and subsidized housing than to give them cash? Should we help intact families more than single mothers or vice versa? Reason divides.

George Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” To that, our news media reply in unison “Yes we can!” For many journalists, Obamacism is their first religious experience. For most journalists, Barack Obama is the only deity they love and revere. For all members of the Fourth Estate, Obamacism is the only religion that matters.

Issues do not matter to the Obamacist. Candidate Obama excoriated President Bush for his profligacy, “two wars on a credit card...Bank of China credit card...” more references to credit cards, calling deficits unpatriotic, etc. President Obama would ultimately spend more rapidly and more recklessly than any president in history, arguably with little or nothing to show for it. The press are behind their deity all the way, They are zealots, not ideologues.

President Obama bears no resemblance to Candidate Obama in 2008 or even Candidate Obama in 2012 when the press adroitly assisted the incumbent in running against his own record. Republicans. The Tea Party. Congress. His rivals who acted as rivals. Rush Limbaugh. These entities all served as scapegoats for the Administration's ongoing failure. Never is anything the president's fault. Never.

The Obamacist media mob praised the Affordable Care Act without reading it. Through executive order and Secretarial fiat, the ACA morphed and shape shifted and evolved into something much different from its legislative form. The chorus backed their deity every step of the way. Changes in law were but words on paper. Love and worship of their leader is all that mattered.

Previous executives waffled or flip-flopped. Barack Obama pivots and grows and evolves. Never indecisive, always reflective. One Obamacist even coined a term to prop up their divinity: He leads from behind. Unconditional love. Unending loyalty. Consensus achieved.

Obamacism is a media-created, media-generated, media-fed religion. A land of skeptics found its savior. Finally, there was someone worthy of their deference. We will examine the techniques of persuasion and deception that made Obamacism possible. We need to reemphasize Obamacism's universal support from the Fourth Estate. Their unanimous, total and unending loyalty has made the impossible a reality.