Obama’s scorecard.
As many commentators have noted, there is an aroma of fear hovering about the White House these days: the stale, acrid scent of panic. Some of us have known all along that Obama, the community organizer miraculously elevated to the U.S. Senate for a few months before he erected some Greek columns and talked his way into the U.S. Presidency, some of us, I say, have known all along that he hadn’t a clue. Now it seems that even he is getting uncomfortable inklings. In the beginning Obama emitted an aura of that some identified as an aura of confidence; really, it was an aura of entitlement — along with what the President himself a while back identified as “bluff.” Are you the sort of person who likes empirical reminders?
I don’t think he is.
And why is the press uninterested in Obama’s Lincoln gaffe? Because it’s Obama, and not Mike Huckabee. Or Sarah Palin.
PBS unexpectedly altered the transcript to make the Obama look better. Surely it was just a transcription error.
Perhaps somebody should tell all those Republicans holding “Lincoln day dinners” (Google it – you’ll get pages of hits) that they need to change the name of their event.
“And why is the press uninterested in Obama’s Lincoln gaffe?
Also because they so very much wish that Lincoln was a Democrat. They even go so far to say that Lincoln’s Republican party would really be considered the Democratic party if he were alive today.
Ok Gerrib, I give up. What about “Lincoln Day” means he is the founder of the Republican Party? I understand why Republicans would celebrate him as the first Republican President and a great leader. And Lincoln Day is sometime around his birthday. Otherwise, I don’t see how celebrating Lincoln equates to Lincoln founded the Republican Party. Hell, you celebrate Obama, so does that mean Obama founded the Democrat Party?
Rand,
Thanks for putting that chart up over here. I saw it at Glenn’s earlier, and it really does paint the picture of Obama as a failure. He can blame Bush. He can blame Congress, but it all happened on his watch.
Lincoln was one of the founders of the Republican party.
As someone wrote previously: “Gerrib misses the point again. Yawn.”
Chris, no he wasn’t. The party was holding local and state conventions in the spring and summer of 1854. Lincoln was still running as a Whig that fall.
The party started in Wisconsin and Michigan, not in Illinois, and spread quickly, absorbing Whigs and free soil Democrats.
Lincoln’s name isn’t even mentioned in History of the US Republican Party/Creation wiki
If Lincoln was one of the founders of the Republican Party, don’t you think Republicans would ceaselessly point that out?
At least Obama hasn’t claimed that Martin Luther King founded the NAACP, but if he did, his supporters would claim he was correct.
No, ObamAA+ has all but destroyed the Democrat party. Which is, actually, a pretty good reason to celebrate, although Chris’ bashes are probably more along the lines of “Après nous, le déluge”.
The president of our 57 states has made many gaffes the media has ignored, but I don’t think this is one of them.
In late 1854, Lincoln ran as a Whig for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois The same year the republican party was formed from an alliance of Whig and other parties. Two years later, the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858.
Lincoln returned to politics to oppose the pro-slavery Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854) So I’d say it is proper to consider him a founder of the republican party.
Then again, the Democrat-Republican party, from which the Whigs came, was formed about 60 years earlier.
There was also this gaffe:
“I want to see more products sold around the world stamped with three proud words: ‘Made in America.’”
The labels say “Made in USA”, not “Made in America”. There’s North America, Central America and South America and the US is one of many American countries.
However, given how Obama and the Democrats have been so hostile to US businesses, maybe this isn’t a gaffe for him. He destroyed thousands of US jobs in domestic oil drilling but supports drilling by Brazil. Maybe he thinks that “Made in America” (but not the US) is a desirable condition.
Ken, I don’t think so. Lincoln opposed slavery, as did most Northerners, including the “founders” of the Republican party. But he hadn’t even joined the party six months after it was holding conventions, so I can’t see how he can be described as a founder. The party didn’t grow slowly over many years, where anyone involved in the early days could be considered a founder. It sprang to life and spread like wildfire, like the Tea Party on steroids, moving in to Illinois and other Northern and Midwestern states. The Republican party fielded candidates in the 1854 election, when Lincoln was still running as a Whig.
It’s like claiming some Republican politcian who joined the Tea Party after the 2010 elections was one of the party’s founders.
Certainly Lincoln was an influential figure in the party early on, but early on almost all the other Whigs and Free Soil politicians had also joined the party. So it’s a bit like claiming Mitt Romney founded the Tea Party just because he joined it, or agreed with its principles, early on, when just about every other Republican politician had done the same.
You make sense George. That’s the problem with things being a bit fuzzy. While Lincoln may not even be technically a founder or member he did give his Peoria speech which had a great impact on it’s founding.
Even if technically wrong, I wouldn’t put too much effort in calling him wrong on this one. 57 states, to me, seems an amazing blunder that the media should have been all over (as they were when Sarah, technically correct, said Revere was sending a message to the British.)
I think we’re all become a bit to sensitized because of the media bias. Then again, perhaps I’m doing my impression of Bill O’Reilly, whom I consider an apologist for evil doers.
I shudder at the thought.
We’ve become… see, oops abound.
…and I see I’ve dropped an ‘O’ on too in the same sentence… other errors I’ll ignore.
I think we’d do better to focus on the ten points listed above.
“really does paint the picture of Obama as a failure.”
Actually, if he wants to destroy the last vestiges of capitalism in America, he’s done anything but fail.
Shorter Chris Gerrib: “Obama said it, I believe it, that settles it.”
Well if Obama said it or rather wrote it, then it is still the year 2008.
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/25/136639679/obama-gets-date-wrong-while-signing-guestbook
After all the stupid gaffes Obama and Biden have made I don’t see how the media and the left can continue to attack Palin or other republicans as being mentally challenged and holding up Obama as the paragon of intellectual thought in America. Oh wait, yes I can.
Even the RNC calls Lincoln a founder – see http://www.gop.com/index.php/issues/heroes/abraham_lincoln-1/
Chris, perhaps you should read that again. It doesn’t call him a founder of the GOP, it says he “co-founded” the Illinois GOP, which was two years after the GOP was running candidates elsewhere. And keep in mind, that’s the closest the GOP itself dares to go in claiming Abraham Lincoln had something to do with its creation.
Again, that’s like a politician helping the Tea Party get started in Oregon in 2012 and then having someone claim they’re a founder of the Tea Party.
And why are Lincoln and the founding of the GOP so important? Because they stopped the party dedicated to the preservation and expansion of perpetual race-based human slavery, which would be Obama’s party.
Chris,
I think “helped establish” means “helped achieve recognition or acceptance for” in that case. It is interesting though that you feel the need to insist that Obama isn’t (ever perhaps) wrong, considering how small an issue (according to some of his supporters) it is. 🙂
Chris, how could Lincoln achieve acceptance for a party that didn’t even exist when he made the speech? Especially when he didn’t even join the party he “created” until two years after it had already been founded in states where folks would’ve needed a short-wave radio from the future to have heard what he said?
Of course Obama also said he wanted to see more of three words, “Made in America,” so I guess he’s never actually purchased a product made here and noticed that the label does not say “Made in America.”
And he said we need knew infrastructure projects because our skies are two crowded. Dangling a hundred feet from a rope to paint a bridge is bad enough, but who wants to hang 35,000 feet in the air to build a new offramp to relieve airline congestion?
But that’s nothing for a guy who thinks we have 57 states, that Austrian is a language, the Canada has a president, that a Kansas tornado killed 10,000 people, or that socialism works.
If your best argument for a gaffe is that somebody is “a” founder as opposed to “the” founder, it’s not much of an argument. Or much of a gaffe.
Yes, Chris there is a big difference between being the founder and a founder or co-founder of a branch two years later. A prepared speech to both houses should never include such a slip. GWB is still getting grief for 16 word that were true then and still true today.
I do think it’s not that big a deal, but because of the left’s usual bias, it is worth nailing home. Your reaction is a part of that.
Ken,
It’s that reaction that I was talking about. Pointing at Obama and declaring “behold the god who bleeds!” (I got that from Jonah Goldberg) is apparently a sin that can not go unanswered. 🙂
Not the first time, did Rand know or just good instincts?
Is it a case of “Gerrib Misses the Point Again. Yawn” or “Gerrib Pretends to to Miss the Point Again So That the Discussion is Diverted Away From the Original Post to a Discussion of His Stupid Comments. Yawn”? You be the judge.
If the former, I suggest we just respond (if at all) with the abbreviation “GMTPAY.”
So Chris Gerrib, if you were to score the president on his progress, what sort of grade would you give him? Or are you only interested in historical minutia?