To anyone who vetted obama back in 2008 - and by definition this would exclude the mainstream media which, instead of vetting obama chose to benignly cover up some of the shenanigans they knew existed there - it was quite apparent that he wasn't going to be a very good president. His verbiage, his ideas, his "policies" were all awash in far left dogma. I have nothing against these ideas were they being discussed in a theoretical, non-public policy setting. There was a time when such ideas were fresh and waiting for their chance at implementation. There was a time when, compared to whatever economy the reigning monarch or dictator was comfortable with, they even seemed plausible. But that was about a century ago. Between then and now countries near and far have instituted socialist, neo-marxist and pure marxist economic models and found out, without a single exception, that they just do not work. The central flaw in such plans was their reliance on the willingness of the producers in society to continue to work hard and innovate new products and markets when they were not being rewarded with the fruits of their labor, at least to a meaningful degree. For those who are not fluent in economic theory, think about obama's stammering answer to the question Joe the Plumber asked him.
"Income redistribution is good!" the wide-eyed obama exclaimed in an off-the-cuff remark that nearly derailed his lead over a closing Hilary Clinton. By income redistribution, obama means taking the money earned by the working class and giving it to those who do not work, whatever their reason is. In some respects it sounds good, at least to the naive and uninitiated. People who want to work but can't find work need help from society, especially when they are trying to provide for a family. Even conservatives believe in that kind of "redistribution." The disagreements and arguments begin when those receiving the redistribution are more or less responsible for their financial plight. Should a hard-working small businessman who is hard-pressed to meet payroll in a recession have to contribute to people who are poor because they dropped out of school, or who elected not to go to college so they could accept a factory job that paid well but ended when the factory closed? How about those endorsed by Mrs. obama who won't take a job in the private sector because it is an assault on their dignity? Should such folk get government money collected in the form of taxes taken from those who are working?
Somewhere between ten weeks of unemployment benefits and government handouts in the latest entitlement program a line needs to be drawn by society. obama wants it drawn about as far down the page as it has ever been drawn. Romney wants it drawn above where it is now.
Were that the choice facing Americans, the November election would merely be a choice between economic models. But obama and company are doing everything in their power to confuse the issues. In doing so, obama has now helped a whole lot of folks to answer an underlying question about his candidacy. As stated, the first question, (has he been a good president?), was answerable even by those who pay but scant attention to national politics about ten or twelve weeks after he had been inaugurated. The answer was plainly "no." No one espousing those far left economic plans, including unchecked spending in the face of huge national debts and soaring taxes during a staggering recession, had any chance at all of being a successful leader.
It is the underlying question, the "second" question, that bothers more and more Americans every day: Is obama at least a good person?
Many held out hope that he was at least this: a good person. But the mounting evidence, including his abominable carrying on in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Arizona immigration case, is that he is not a good person. I, for one, do not think it is even a close question.
We ask our President to rise above the fray, to stand tall in the face of unrelenting criticism. We ask for a noble heart and a noble soul, we ask for a profoundly caring and graceful heart exhibited for all Americans, whether they be rich or poor, democrat or republican, white or black or hispanic.
When the President loses a political or legal battle, as inevitably he must, we insist that he not act petulant or vindictive. But that is exactly what this person has done. His "defeat" in the case was barely that. Of the four parts of the Arizona Law considered by the Supreme Court, three were found unconstitutional. The fourth and supposedly most controversial portion of the state law - the part requiring law enforcement officers to inquire about a person's immigration status during legal stops, was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court. Read that again: unanimous Supreme Court. All eight of the participating justices - one, Justice Kagan, excused herself because of a possible conflict of interest - found that the law as written was constitutional. The majority cautioned that what looks good on paper may fall short in practice, and they left open the possibility that the Supreme Court and the lower courts may have to revisit the application of the law once its implementation becomes clearer. But this reasoned decision was not what obama wanted, and he instructed federal immigration officials to immediately stop cooperating with Arizona Law Enforcement Personnel when it comes to immigration law violators. So if Arizona police stop an illegal immigrant who has a felony record and, after doing so, call the INS to begin the deportation process, the INS will refuse to cooperate. Since state law enforcement folks cannot themselves deport anyone, the state will be left with the choice of trying the violator in state court and paying for the cost of any imprisonment that is ordered, or letting the felon go.
Imagine that: the jail house doors open and vile criminal - maybe a rapist, maybe a pedophile - walks free, courtesy of one person: obama.
obama has forgotten that Arizona citizens are also citizens of these United States and that obama is their president. obama has lost sight of his duty to all the people. obama has acted with extreme petulance. If he could not have it exactly the way he wanted it he was going to take his ball and go home.
What, exactly, has Arizona Governor Brewer done wrong? Her state is on the frontline of the immigration issue. It is the entry point for thousands of people who break the law by crossing the Mexican border and come to the United States. Leftists say how can anyone criticize those coming to the USA find a better life. Okay, we won't criticize the immigrants. But what should Arizona do? It is not debatable that illegal immigrants are causing an upheaval for state authorities. They have sent the crime rate soaring. They have overrun state social services. They have jammed hospital emergency rooms. These people are fending for themselves and getting help where it is to be had. Like many Americans, my complaint is not with those who come seeking a better life. Like many Americans, my complaint is with those in the government who cannot do their duty and do what is best for America. The American People, by a wide majority, want the national borders sealed and want immigration to proceed under law. I would favor an immediate overhaul of the immigration laws, with an eye towards higher numbers of immigrants and less red tape for those who play by the rules, but only after the borders are sealed.
In Arizona, the governor is charged with caring for all of the citizens of Arizona. Landowners near the Mexican frontier have been made the victims of criminal acts by immigrants desperate to make a successful crossing. The proximity of Arizona to the frontlines of the Mexican drug wars means that elements from those wars have carried their act into Arizona. The feds - meaning obama - will not enforce the law in Arizona. Now, they are taking steps to make sure the State doesn't enforce the laws either.
This makes a mockery of the United States Code. There are laws on the book that obama doesn't like. Many leftists want those immigrants to come en masse and become voters in the lefts' dream of national conquest.
(I don't for a second believe that Hispanics will be Democrats for long. It has become a party for anti=Americans. It is not a party for liberals. Once new citizens see this, as they surely will, they will no longer vote for Democrats. That would be the inevitable fulfillment of the old phrase, what goes around comes around.)
He is not the kind of person who should ever have become president. His economic policies are relics of the far left trash heap. His foreign policy initiatives have been morally clouded by his extreme desire to gussy up to dictators like castro and chavez and even the iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At the same time, countries that have stood by the USA through thick and thin - England, Poland, Honduras and, most of all, Israel - have felt obama's boot on their windpipe. This is the president who confronts economic calamity by strangling the means to recover. He chokes off energy sources like the Gulf of Mexico, the Keystone Pipeline and our Coal and domestic oil reserves. This is the man who is itching, real real bad, to compel the private sector to hire even when it doesn't perceive that such a move would be in their economic best interests.
This is the president who assumes American Blacks will vote for him again in droves. It is possible that they will because of the sorry treatment accorded them during much of American History. But what has obama done to earn their vote. Black unemployment is at historic highs. The unemployment rate of black teens is literally through the roof. Compare those rates with the rates during any previous administration. Black leaders excoriated President Bush for every reason in the book. President Bush had black unemployment at or near historic lows throughout his eight year presidency, save for the twelve months after the Nine=Eleven Attacks. If Romney were to fashion a plan to emphasize a direct attack on black unemployment beginning on day one of his administration, who is to say that he could not siphon off five to ten percent of the black vote. If he did, obama would have no chance to gain a second term.
For those who continue to support obama, answer this one question. What has he accomplished? Is it your idea that he has earned a second term? If he hasn't earned it, and God knows he hasn't, then he does not deserve to win. No incumbent president should be writing off any constituencies this early in the election cycle. Yet obama has already written off white men, all of Texas and now all of Arizona. But it doesn't matter to him. All that matters to obama is obama. And that is his ultimate shame.
There are other things worth writing about. I wrote recently about Danielle Trussoni's novel, "Angelology." One of the many great things about the story is the way it grabbed you on the first page and would not let go. I won't ruin it for you if you haven't read it yet. Now I'm reading David Mitchell's novel, the 1000 Autumn Nights of Jacob de Zoet. Like Trussoni, he reaches out and grabs the reader at the outset. The first chapter of the historical novel contains an account of a natural event gone wrong and it will leave you sweating. Mitchell writes as if he is more comfortable with a pen in hand than someone to talk to when he has something to say. Great writers are like that: more comfortable writing than talking.
In baseball, the Orioles are confronting a huge problem that threatens their magical exploits so far this season. The problem is hitting, or, more accurately, the lack of hitting. Over the weekend the Orioles beat the Nationals two out of three but only scored five runs total while doing so. Friday, the wonderful Jason Hammel won for the eighth time and surrendered only one run in the process. He was coming off a complete game shutout. On Sunday, the other Oriole wonderkund, Wei-Yin Chen, stymied the Nats on Sunday and Matt Wieters hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth for another 2-1 win. On Monday, the Orioles lost to the Angels 7-3 after falling behind, 7-0. Wilson Betemit hit his tenth homer in the 8th inning, but it was too little and way too late. To make matters worse, Hammel was roughed up by the Angels on Wednesday night, falling behind 7-1 in the fourth inning.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Thoughts on Baseball, the imperial president and gifted writers
Here we go. The Baltimore Orioles have had thirteen, count them, 13 consecutive losing seasons. This year the "meat" of the batting order is, or was supposed to be: 2. Markakis, RF; 3. Jones, CF; and 4. Wieters, C. Markakis is hurt and will be out for another month, give or take. Before being injured he was hitting .255 with 8 HR and 26 RBI's in 199 at bats. Jones is making a run at an All-Star berth for the second time in three years. He is hitting .307 with 18 HR and 39 RBI in 251 AB. Wieters was in a slump until a week ago. Currently he is at 9 HR and 32 RBI in 218 AB. While none of the three is having a bad year, only Jones is having a good year. And yet the Orioles begin play today one and one-half games behind the Yankees. They are in second place in the hellish AL East.
There are many reasons why. Start, first, at the top. Ever since Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos purchased the team in the mid-1990's he has had an irresistible urge to jerk around with the roster and front office. It started at the outset of his tenure when he hired Hall-of-Fame GM Pat Gillick to run the team. Gillick immediately made a number of deft moves to improve the team but even he knew they weren't yet a champion. At mid-season that first year they were about five games out and tripping all over themselves. Worse yet, they were not a young team. Gillick wanted to parlay some of the vets into a crop of younger players. Bobby Bonilla was one of the vets and he went to Angelos and convinced him the current team would make the playoffs. Angelos refused to allow Gillick to do what he planned to and the vets did pull together and win the wild card berth. That sealed to Orioles fate for over a decade. Angelos took the playoff berth as "proof" he knew as much about baseball as so-called baseball people. Gillick was gone at the end of the season and other decent and even good baseball people followed him. Mike Flannagan, a legendary Oriole from the Weaver-Palmer-Brooks and Frank Robinson years, was one whom Angelos chose. But none ever got a chance to turn the team around. Time after time a trade was nixed, a signing turned down, a scout fired.
It appears, finally, after a bakers' dozen of feeble failures the asbestos attorney has finally learned to mind his own business and let somebody else run the team. Dan Duquette was hired last winter. Two years earlier Buck Showalter was hired to manage. These two chaps fit the mold of great baseball people. The most important thing Duquette has done is stock the pitching staff with good strong and mostly young arms. Jason Hammel is the best example. He came to the Birds from Colorado, where he had never pitched a complete game. Last night in Atlanta he took a no-hitter into the seventh before winning with a complete-game, one-hit shut-out. Hammel is now 7-2 with a stunning 2.87 ERA. The other huge surprise is Wei-Yin Chen, the Korean rookie pitching for the first time in these United States. He is only 6-2 in 12 starts and 73.1 innings. He is giving up less than a hit an inning (barely), which, to me, is just about the most revealing pitching stat in the game. The bullpen has been even better. The closer is Jim Johnson. For years everyone in the game has known that Johnson has the kind of stuff to be a killer closer. But everytime the Orioles would slip him in there, he'd starting pitching poorly. Then, at the end of last season when hardly anyone was paying attention, they tried it again, and this time it worked. Right from the git-go this season he has been superb. As I write, he has 19 saves and a 1.26 ERA. In 28 games and 28.2 innings he has surrendered only 15 hits. In that number of innings he has struck out 17 and walked only five. An even bigger surprise is Pedro Strop. The first time this season he pitched for the Orioles, those who didn't pay attention in spring training had their jaws dropped. He throws in the upper nineties and has a breaking ball that takes your breath away. The issue with Strop in the past has been control. This year, in 31.1 innings he has walked 18. This isn't superb, but it isn't a deal breaker either. He has become an outstanding set up man and his ERA is a Johnson-like 1.44. Add these two together with side-winder Darren O'Day (1.72 ERA in 31.1 innings) and Luis Ayala (1.74 ERA in 31 innings), and a picture begins to emerge. Not only has the back of the bullpen been extremely effective, there are enough successful arms to spread the work effectively. No one is being overworked. Even Johnson has been spared, explaining why Strop has three saves to complement Johnson's 19.
Other wonderful things have happened to the Orioles, none more wonderful than the return early last week of Brian Roberts. The former All-Star second baseman had not played since the first month of the 2011 season because of continuing complications from back-to-back concussions. In 22 at bats since rejoining the line-up Tuesday, he is batting .318 with four RBIs, including three last night in Atlanta. Showalter has thrown Roberts right into the fire, batting him leadoff in his first game and keeping him there. But far and away the biggest offensive surprise for the Orioles is Chris Davis, the former Texas Ranger. A left-handed hitter with great power, Davis has put a dent in his old bugaboo, strike-outs, without compromising his power. To date he is hitting a strong .310 with 12 HR and 31 RBI. He still leads the team in strike-outs with 59, but it isn't by the wide-margin his previous campaigns would predict. Because he is a regular now he seems very relaxed and focused. In a key win in Fenway Park, he pitched two scoreless innings in a 17-inning victory and earned the win. With the Orioles outfield overwhelmed with injuries (of the four outfielders who began the season, three are on the DL), Showalter started Davis in LF one game last week, and he looked totally at ease and even contributed a magnificent running and diving catch.
Supposedly Bill Clinton said at the outset of the obama term that America would - or was it "should?" - give obama's far left policy package two years, and if it wasn't working by then, America would, or should, kick him out.
Consider this: How many Americans would have voted for obama if he told them in advance what he was going to do. If obama said he would push so hard for his far left family control act (health care) that nothing would stop him, not even the certainty that a large majority of Americans wanted nothing to do with the plan, not even the certainty that the mid-term elections would be a disaster for his party. Would America have voted for obama if he told America before the election that he would spend more and create more red ink than the rest of America's leaders combined? How many would have voted for him if they thought he was serious about redistributing the country's wealth? How many would have voted differently if they knew he would abandon his stated view that gay marraige was wrong? Would even half of the people who voted for him repeat that step if they knew he would say that America has "never worked?" When people voted for him four years ago, if they knew how really awful the economy would be leading into this year's election, even as obama is out saying day after day that his total inability to turn things around was Bush's fault. We were told back then that Bush was a moron. Now, we are told he was so diabolical that lo these many years later the greatest far left uberleftist minds cannot undue his diabolical scheming.
President Kennedy was only able to complete three years of his first term before he was shot and killed by a far left murderer in Dallas, Texas. I was very young when that tragedy hit us. And yet I do not recall, and no historian has recalled that President Kennedy ever blamed his predecessor for anything. Three years and obama hasn't begun to turn things around. His initiatives the first two years were guaranteed to become law because he controlled Congress, and that control was total and absolute. He humbled anyone who opposed him. Even the Democrats in Congress knew that obama's hellish health debacle was the death knell for many of them. But obama and pelosi had such control that no one dared to step out of line. The country had begun to get the picture by 2010 and began the process of booting the leftists out. Even Edward Kennedy's seat went to the GOP. Ever the totally arrogant leftist, obama pushed on, totally disregarding what the electorate was telling him. He managed to push the thing through Congress by changing rules, making new rules in the middle of the game, and making blatant "trades" with reluctant Democratic Senators to get their vote. One such politician believed it when obama told him there would be no abortion money in the plan. The same guy was about to plunk some money down on this bridge across the Hudson in Brooklyn, N.Y., but, well....
This story is being told again and again in every conservative outpost across the nation, so desperate are many "mainstream" Americans to relieve obama of his duties. But it isn't just conservatives. It's longtime Democrats like myself, who get a sick feeling every time I contemplate the state of my country. It is so hard to believe somebody could be President who says in an election-year speech that America has "never worked."
It has worked for 236 years. In fact, until obama, it kept getting better each year. Faults that were there at the outset have been purged. Sometimes the purging is so painful that it hurts for years. By this, I mean, of course, the embarrassment of slavery and the cure brought about by the Civil War. But what country has been better since the founding of these United States. Immigrants want to come in. Virtually nobody wants to leave. President Reagan put it best when he said we were the shining light for a tired world.
Last week obama decided that the laws passed by Congress and having to do with immigration would be violated by his administration. He and previous presidents have all declined to vigorously enforce these laws. But obama has gone so much further. He has sued states trying to protect themselves by enforcing the Federal Law themselves. Now, he has told Federal INS people not to deport teenage illegal immigrants, but to instead give them a work permit and do whatever else is necessary to allow them to stay. This step with immigration is in keeping with other steps he has taken to circumvent other laws he doesn't like. He created a firestorm when he intimated that he would not abandon his obamacare mess even if it was thrown out by the courts. He has not adhered to federal district and federal appellate decisions to this effect, in contrast to what other presidents have done when a federal court declares a law unconstitutional. In fact, he has continued to order the spending of millions of federal dollars implement obamacare even though it may be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the next weeks. He sees the Presidency as a sort of imperial position, which, to my humble way of thinking, is in keeping with the manner in which he gussies up to third world dictators like Chavez and Castro.
If, heaven-forbid, he gets re-elected, the things he will certainly do will include unilateral nuclear disarmament, virtually open national borders and the removal of any vestige of a "wall" on the southern border. The third certainty is a doubling and tripling of the amount of taxes paid by middle-class Americans. It will be Katie-bar-the door.
In the last six months I've read two books which ended up being wonderful and rewarding. I was glad because it was hard to believe either writer could pull it off.
The two books of which I speak are Danielle Trusonni's "Angelology," and Christina Haag's "Come to the Edge." I had read Trussoni's first book, which her acclaimed personal memoir of growing up with a father who was a Vietnam Vet, individualist and, sadly, alcoholic. I was completely stunned when her second book was a novel based upon some of the most mysterious and least-understood parts of the Bible, the verses in Genesis 6 which speak of the "sons of God" mating with human females and producing offspring, called Nephilim. It would be hard for someone just on the scene to keep her serious credentials while tackling such a subject, which is instantly controversial in today's politically correct secular world. The book opens with a small group of scientists standing around the corpse of an angel. Just to contemplate how such an event would turn our world upside down hooked me right away. But many would be instantly angered that a so-called serious writer with a serious book already to her enduring credit would abandon it to write a novel which, if not pro-Christian in the usual sense, is certainly written with the idea that the Christ of the Bible and the World he created is both alive and doing well. Ms. Trussoni is a fine fine writer and a serious writer, both before and after the publishing of Angelology. Her ability to draw upon what the world knows and thinks it knows about Angels kept me fully attentive throughout the 452 page hardcover edition. Her characters are beautifully developed and seductively real. She draws upon the writings of Boethius, the fifth-century Christian philosopher and martyr, in setting the stage for some of the books most thrilling sections. If I have to confess to a disappointment - and I presume it will only be temporary - it is the fact that the ending is not an ending but, in reality, the beginning of the second book.
Ms. Haag had a similar obstacle to overcome as did Ms. Trussoni. The average reader will doubt that she can write a book on her selected subject without delving into sensationalism and glitter. In the case of Come to the Edge the subject is the writer's long love affair with the late John Kennedy, Jr., the son of the late President. And yet, as many reviewers have concluded, that is exactly what she did. It is boring, I think, to call her book "tasteful," but those who do are trying to say that Ms. Haag gives a poignant and first-hand glimpse at a potentially great man without resorting to "Entertainment Tonight" revelations. What we get is a very real look at two gifted and, admittedly, very-well-off young people making their way in our world and overcoming a tremendous amount of disappointment in the process. obama might learn something from the book: money does not corrupt automatically. Mr. Kennedy and his famous mother deal daily with questions of humility, conceit, and public appearances. They grapple with keeping themselves grounded when the public wants to know your every thought and inclination. Ms. Haag, while not famous to the same degree, nevertheless fights similar battles and maintains dignity and grace throughout. Her battle with breast cancer is told with an honesty and realism that would give assistance to anyone who has or is fighting a similar war.
There are many reasons why. Start, first, at the top. Ever since Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos purchased the team in the mid-1990's he has had an irresistible urge to jerk around with the roster and front office. It started at the outset of his tenure when he hired Hall-of-Fame GM Pat Gillick to run the team. Gillick immediately made a number of deft moves to improve the team but even he knew they weren't yet a champion. At mid-season that first year they were about five games out and tripping all over themselves. Worse yet, they were not a young team. Gillick wanted to parlay some of the vets into a crop of younger players. Bobby Bonilla was one of the vets and he went to Angelos and convinced him the current team would make the playoffs. Angelos refused to allow Gillick to do what he planned to and the vets did pull together and win the wild card berth. That sealed to Orioles fate for over a decade. Angelos took the playoff berth as "proof" he knew as much about baseball as so-called baseball people. Gillick was gone at the end of the season and other decent and even good baseball people followed him. Mike Flannagan, a legendary Oriole from the Weaver-Palmer-Brooks and Frank Robinson years, was one whom Angelos chose. But none ever got a chance to turn the team around. Time after time a trade was nixed, a signing turned down, a scout fired.
It appears, finally, after a bakers' dozen of feeble failures the asbestos attorney has finally learned to mind his own business and let somebody else run the team. Dan Duquette was hired last winter. Two years earlier Buck Showalter was hired to manage. These two chaps fit the mold of great baseball people. The most important thing Duquette has done is stock the pitching staff with good strong and mostly young arms. Jason Hammel is the best example. He came to the Birds from Colorado, where he had never pitched a complete game. Last night in Atlanta he took a no-hitter into the seventh before winning with a complete-game, one-hit shut-out. Hammel is now 7-2 with a stunning 2.87 ERA. The other huge surprise is Wei-Yin Chen, the Korean rookie pitching for the first time in these United States. He is only 6-2 in 12 starts and 73.1 innings. He is giving up less than a hit an inning (barely), which, to me, is just about the most revealing pitching stat in the game. The bullpen has been even better. The closer is Jim Johnson. For years everyone in the game has known that Johnson has the kind of stuff to be a killer closer. But everytime the Orioles would slip him in there, he'd starting pitching poorly. Then, at the end of last season when hardly anyone was paying attention, they tried it again, and this time it worked. Right from the git-go this season he has been superb. As I write, he has 19 saves and a 1.26 ERA. In 28 games and 28.2 innings he has surrendered only 15 hits. In that number of innings he has struck out 17 and walked only five. An even bigger surprise is Pedro Strop. The first time this season he pitched for the Orioles, those who didn't pay attention in spring training had their jaws dropped. He throws in the upper nineties and has a breaking ball that takes your breath away. The issue with Strop in the past has been control. This year, in 31.1 innings he has walked 18. This isn't superb, but it isn't a deal breaker either. He has become an outstanding set up man and his ERA is a Johnson-like 1.44. Add these two together with side-winder Darren O'Day (1.72 ERA in 31.1 innings) and Luis Ayala (1.74 ERA in 31 innings), and a picture begins to emerge. Not only has the back of the bullpen been extremely effective, there are enough successful arms to spread the work effectively. No one is being overworked. Even Johnson has been spared, explaining why Strop has three saves to complement Johnson's 19.
Other wonderful things have happened to the Orioles, none more wonderful than the return early last week of Brian Roberts. The former All-Star second baseman had not played since the first month of the 2011 season because of continuing complications from back-to-back concussions. In 22 at bats since rejoining the line-up Tuesday, he is batting .318 with four RBIs, including three last night in Atlanta. Showalter has thrown Roberts right into the fire, batting him leadoff in his first game and keeping him there. But far and away the biggest offensive surprise for the Orioles is Chris Davis, the former Texas Ranger. A left-handed hitter with great power, Davis has put a dent in his old bugaboo, strike-outs, without compromising his power. To date he is hitting a strong .310 with 12 HR and 31 RBI. He still leads the team in strike-outs with 59, but it isn't by the wide-margin his previous campaigns would predict. Because he is a regular now he seems very relaxed and focused. In a key win in Fenway Park, he pitched two scoreless innings in a 17-inning victory and earned the win. With the Orioles outfield overwhelmed with injuries (of the four outfielders who began the season, three are on the DL), Showalter started Davis in LF one game last week, and he looked totally at ease and even contributed a magnificent running and diving catch.
Supposedly Bill Clinton said at the outset of the obama term that America would - or was it "should?" - give obama's far left policy package two years, and if it wasn't working by then, America would, or should, kick him out.
Consider this: How many Americans would have voted for obama if he told them in advance what he was going to do. If obama said he would push so hard for his far left family control act (health care) that nothing would stop him, not even the certainty that a large majority of Americans wanted nothing to do with the plan, not even the certainty that the mid-term elections would be a disaster for his party. Would America have voted for obama if he told America before the election that he would spend more and create more red ink than the rest of America's leaders combined? How many would have voted for him if they thought he was serious about redistributing the country's wealth? How many would have voted differently if they knew he would abandon his stated view that gay marraige was wrong? Would even half of the people who voted for him repeat that step if they knew he would say that America has "never worked?" When people voted for him four years ago, if they knew how really awful the economy would be leading into this year's election, even as obama is out saying day after day that his total inability to turn things around was Bush's fault. We were told back then that Bush was a moron. Now, we are told he was so diabolical that lo these many years later the greatest far left uberleftist minds cannot undue his diabolical scheming.
President Kennedy was only able to complete three years of his first term before he was shot and killed by a far left murderer in Dallas, Texas. I was very young when that tragedy hit us. And yet I do not recall, and no historian has recalled that President Kennedy ever blamed his predecessor for anything. Three years and obama hasn't begun to turn things around. His initiatives the first two years were guaranteed to become law because he controlled Congress, and that control was total and absolute. He humbled anyone who opposed him. Even the Democrats in Congress knew that obama's hellish health debacle was the death knell for many of them. But obama and pelosi had such control that no one dared to step out of line. The country had begun to get the picture by 2010 and began the process of booting the leftists out. Even Edward Kennedy's seat went to the GOP. Ever the totally arrogant leftist, obama pushed on, totally disregarding what the electorate was telling him. He managed to push the thing through Congress by changing rules, making new rules in the middle of the game, and making blatant "trades" with reluctant Democratic Senators to get their vote. One such politician believed it when obama told him there would be no abortion money in the plan. The same guy was about to plunk some money down on this bridge across the Hudson in Brooklyn, N.Y., but, well....
This story is being told again and again in every conservative outpost across the nation, so desperate are many "mainstream" Americans to relieve obama of his duties. But it isn't just conservatives. It's longtime Democrats like myself, who get a sick feeling every time I contemplate the state of my country. It is so hard to believe somebody could be President who says in an election-year speech that America has "never worked."
It has worked for 236 years. In fact, until obama, it kept getting better each year. Faults that were there at the outset have been purged. Sometimes the purging is so painful that it hurts for years. By this, I mean, of course, the embarrassment of slavery and the cure brought about by the Civil War. But what country has been better since the founding of these United States. Immigrants want to come in. Virtually nobody wants to leave. President Reagan put it best when he said we were the shining light for a tired world.
Last week obama decided that the laws passed by Congress and having to do with immigration would be violated by his administration. He and previous presidents have all declined to vigorously enforce these laws. But obama has gone so much further. He has sued states trying to protect themselves by enforcing the Federal Law themselves. Now, he has told Federal INS people not to deport teenage illegal immigrants, but to instead give them a work permit and do whatever else is necessary to allow them to stay. This step with immigration is in keeping with other steps he has taken to circumvent other laws he doesn't like. He created a firestorm when he intimated that he would not abandon his obamacare mess even if it was thrown out by the courts. He has not adhered to federal district and federal appellate decisions to this effect, in contrast to what other presidents have done when a federal court declares a law unconstitutional. In fact, he has continued to order the spending of millions of federal dollars implement obamacare even though it may be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the next weeks. He sees the Presidency as a sort of imperial position, which, to my humble way of thinking, is in keeping with the manner in which he gussies up to third world dictators like Chavez and Castro.
If, heaven-forbid, he gets re-elected, the things he will certainly do will include unilateral nuclear disarmament, virtually open national borders and the removal of any vestige of a "wall" on the southern border. The third certainty is a doubling and tripling of the amount of taxes paid by middle-class Americans. It will be Katie-bar-the door.
In the last six months I've read two books which ended up being wonderful and rewarding. I was glad because it was hard to believe either writer could pull it off.
The two books of which I speak are Danielle Trusonni's "Angelology," and Christina Haag's "Come to the Edge." I had read Trussoni's first book, which her acclaimed personal memoir of growing up with a father who was a Vietnam Vet, individualist and, sadly, alcoholic. I was completely stunned when her second book was a novel based upon some of the most mysterious and least-understood parts of the Bible, the verses in Genesis 6 which speak of the "sons of God" mating with human females and producing offspring, called Nephilim. It would be hard for someone just on the scene to keep her serious credentials while tackling such a subject, which is instantly controversial in today's politically correct secular world. The book opens with a small group of scientists standing around the corpse of an angel. Just to contemplate how such an event would turn our world upside down hooked me right away. But many would be instantly angered that a so-called serious writer with a serious book already to her enduring credit would abandon it to write a novel which, if not pro-Christian in the usual sense, is certainly written with the idea that the Christ of the Bible and the World he created is both alive and doing well. Ms. Trussoni is a fine fine writer and a serious writer, both before and after the publishing of Angelology. Her ability to draw upon what the world knows and thinks it knows about Angels kept me fully attentive throughout the 452 page hardcover edition. Her characters are beautifully developed and seductively real. She draws upon the writings of Boethius, the fifth-century Christian philosopher and martyr, in setting the stage for some of the books most thrilling sections. If I have to confess to a disappointment - and I presume it will only be temporary - it is the fact that the ending is not an ending but, in reality, the beginning of the second book.
Ms. Haag had a similar obstacle to overcome as did Ms. Trussoni. The average reader will doubt that she can write a book on her selected subject without delving into sensationalism and glitter. In the case of Come to the Edge the subject is the writer's long love affair with the late John Kennedy, Jr., the son of the late President. And yet, as many reviewers have concluded, that is exactly what she did. It is boring, I think, to call her book "tasteful," but those who do are trying to say that Ms. Haag gives a poignant and first-hand glimpse at a potentially great man without resorting to "Entertainment Tonight" revelations. What we get is a very real look at two gifted and, admittedly, very-well-off young people making their way in our world and overcoming a tremendous amount of disappointment in the process. obama might learn something from the book: money does not corrupt automatically. Mr. Kennedy and his famous mother deal daily with questions of humility, conceit, and public appearances. They grapple with keeping themselves grounded when the public wants to know your every thought and inclination. Ms. Haag, while not famous to the same degree, nevertheless fights similar battles and maintains dignity and grace throughout. Her battle with breast cancer is told with an honesty and realism that would give assistance to anyone who has or is fighting a similar war.
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