Such is the theme of this item in the American Spectator:

Early stories on Clinton's State Department highlighted the slow pace of hiring for her senior staff, but the current issues have little to do with that, say the State Department employees, who say there is a growing impression that Clinton is frustrated by her inability to be front and center on foreign policy, taking the back seat to Obama, and chafing at White House control over foreign affairs.

I have to ask: What did Hillary expect? After a nasty and bruising primary battle, the last person that President Obama would wan tin is inner circle would be The Smartest Woman in the History of the Galaxy, er, Hillary Clinton. And it turns out that appointing Hillary Secretary of State was a clever means of sidelining her without delivering a rude slap upside the head. Cabinet secretaries have no more power or influence than the president is prepared to give them—and it appears that Obama is content to let Hillary languish in the mists of Foggy Bottom.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:50 AM EDT

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It's easy, I suppose, to feel optimistic about the economy when you're cocooned in the White House, surrounded by worshipful aides and fawning reporters, cut off from the realities of daily life in recession-era America. It must take exceptional strength of character to put the hosannas in perspective and maintain one's grip on reality. Alas, it would appear that President Obama lacks that requisite strength of character.

The President, we are told, is optimistic that his stimulus package is turning the economy around. To date, the White House crows, stimulus spending has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs.

Unfortunately many more hundreds of thousands of jobs are disappearing as the recession tightens its grip, and the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that unemployment will peak at around 10.5% by the middle of 2010—just when congressional Democrats are girding their loins to face what will surely be a discontented electorate. One wonders how optimistic they're feeling right now.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:32 AM EDT

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It's funny in a way—rambling, incoherent, contradicting itself at every turn—but Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's recent speech to student's and faculty at China's Beijing's Tsinghua University was very revealing of environmentalism's totalitarian mindset. "We have so much room for improvement," she cried at one point. "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory…of how we are taking responsibility."

I'm quite sure that Ms. Pelosi and her goose-stepping environmental stormtroopers would like nothing better than the power to "inventory" the lives of Americans. As far as I'm concerned, though, the Speaker can take a hike. Pass the carbon.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:47 AM EDT

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To most Americans, no doubt, Korea seems very far away, and the current crisis in that part of the world no more than a distant echo.

Not for my wife and me. Our daughter, a serving soldier, is an MP stationed in South Korea. May Almighty God hold His hand in protection over Alex and her fellow soldiers, sustain them in the performance of their duty and, that duty done, return them safely and with honor to their homes and families. Amen.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:17 AM EDT

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Incidentally, the huffing and puffing about Sonia Sotomayor's "empathy" and "compassion" turns the spotlight of truth on what passes for judicial philosophy in progressive circles. Equal justice under law? Forget about it! What counts are outcomes. If, for instance, you support gay marriage, you want a judge whose "empathy will lead him to the decision you prefer. Roe v. Wade established the template for this approach to jurisprudence. From a "right to privacy" (not actually mentioned in the Constitution), the Supreme Court derived a right for women to murder their own posterity—if I may characterize that notorious decision in plain words. Leaving aside the moral dimensions of Roe v. Wade, its legal reasoning is utterly specious. But remember—the outcome is all that matters!

In America we used to have something called the rule of law. Now we have the rule of lawyers. It's not at all the same thing—but it is very convenient for goals-oriented progressives like Barack Obama.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:05 AM EDT

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My take on Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: She's an an affirmative-action hire, plain and simple. Given her high reversal rate (above 60%), lack of intellectual heft and history of offensive, not to say racist, comments, Sotomayor wouldn't have a prayer of being confirmed—if she were a white male instead of a "wise Latina woman." Ugh.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:56 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 May 2009 8:00 AM EDT

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I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.

Huh? What the hell am I talking about here? Am I a racist and a sexist? Well, no, not really. I'm just a creative blogger who took the following quote from a speech by Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. She actually said: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."

Now I ask you, is either of the above statements less offensive, racist and sexist than the other? This single sentence alone would be enough to disqualify Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, were she not, as a "Latina female," a member of two officially designated victim groups.

Oh, and the speech including this nasty little comment was delivered to a racist hate group—La Raza. That figures.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:15 AM EDT

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Progressives are always insisting that America would be a better place if it was more like such saintly European nations as Sweden, France and Germany. So I wonder if they'll take their cue from Germany in this instance:

Just as the Obama administration and its allies in Congress try to ram through cap and trade legislation, European countries are moving to exempt entire industries from the regulation lest they simply relocate their operations to more business-friendly nations. 

Since Obama's war on carbon has nothing to do with the environment, and is in reality an underhanded attempt to saddle the US economy with an enormous new tax, I doubt that he'll follow Germany's sensible lead. Obama needs the money. That the anticipated tax revenues will come at the price of hundreds of thousands of American jobs is a decidedly minor consideration in the mind of our president.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:44 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 27 May 2009 8:54 AM EDT

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No man of honor would have accepted the appointment to President Obama's vacated Senate seat from a corrupt rat like disgraced (and now indicted) former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Ergo, Democratic Senator Roland Burris, who now holds that seat courtesy of Blagojevich, is no man of honor. And here’s the proof, if your one of those true believers in the purity of progressivism who still require proof:

Burris on tape: Promises to 'do something' for Blagojevich

Quod erat demonstrandum. (Hat tip: The Chicago Sun-Times.)

Posted by tmg110 at 8:39 AM EDT

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Writing for the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes offers an interesting take on Barack Obama's high-risk presidency:

Like a troubled bank, President Obama is overleveraged. When a bank makes risky loans and many of them default, the bank goes bankrupt (or gets bailed out). When a first-term president adopts risky policies and many of them fail, his prospects for sustained public approval and reelection diminish.

One of Obama's policies—the decision to close the Guantánamo prison within a year—has already gotten him in a jam. He has no plan for relocating most of the 241 detainees, and Congress refuses to fund the shutdown until he produces one. Both Congress and the public oppose transferring the prisoners to jails on American soil.

I think Barnes is on to something here. As he notes, the President's various proposals contradict one another at many points, e.g. how can the US achieve "energy independence," a key Administration goal, while suppressing domestic energy production? That does not compute.

Perhaps Obama has become the ultimate victim of his own PR machine, and believes that mere computation is irrelevant when set against his desires. Smart people do not necessarily possess wisdom , after all.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:12 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 May 2009 9:02 AM EDT

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