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Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 27, 2009 / 7 Elul 5769

Obama's Carousel of Incompetence

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | According to the Gallup Poll, the Prophet Obama's job approval is now at its lowest since his coronation. It began at 70 percent. Now it is at 51 percent. Equally glum, his disapproval rating has climbed from 11 percent to 42 percent. So what about his golf game up there at Martha's Vineyard? From all I have been able to ascertain, it is mediocre. In other words, Mr. Obama, you are no Dan Quayle. Former Vice President Quayle was a really superb golfer. Moreover, he ran a competent staff. Naturally, it was smaller than Mr. Obama's, but it was run competently.


My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White House is a carousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts — health care, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front, the president is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's callous enjoiner "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste"? This White House is a serious crisis.


According to sources with whom I confer, the Obama White House is the most tightly controlled White House in years, with the president, Emanuel and David Axelrod micromanaging practically everything. They constitute what is called "the Politburo," and the news story waiting to be written is that their control is as stultifying as was Jimmy Carter's control of his White House. Stupendous failure is in the cards.


The Politburo follows no organizational flowcharts. A source deeply rooted in official Washington tells me that when the president and his fellows want information from the National Security Council, they may go to its head, Gen. James L. Jones, or they may not. They may just call in one or two of his subordinates. If they do this with Jones, they probably do it with other government heads. That cannot be good for morale, to say nothing of orderly decision-making. Slowly some news stories are appearing that convey the harum-scarum state of things in the Obama government. Burnout afflicts staffers. The president has fewer than half his appointments in place to advance his historically unprecedented agenda. Mr. Emanuel, your crisis is shaping up nicely.


Some months back, Sidney Blumenthal — then a loyal Democrat expecting an appointment over at the State Department, where he could serve with his idol Hillary Clinton — inadvertently told a reporter that the Chicagoans coming in with Mr. Obama were even greener than the Arkansans who came in with the Clintons. By "greener," he was not referring to their environmental bona fides. He was referring to their governmental experience. They were provincials, though coming from a large and sophisticated city, they were much less aware of what they did not know than were the Arkansans. Remember that Blumenthal is from Chicago and that he was very close to the Clintons. His revelation is well-grounded.


Blumenthal did not get the appointment the Clintons wanted for him. That brings me to still more evidence of the Politburo's incompetence, to wit, bringing a Clinton into the Cabinet. Last year, Mr. Obama beat Hillary Clinton in an acrimonious competition for the nomination. She was beaten and out of the limelight. Her husband was discredited as a campaigner and revealed as a cad. The Clintons should have been history. But the geniuses in what we now call the Politburo brought Hillary back to center stage and installed her at State. Then they attempted to hem her in by appointing nearly 20 special envoys and ambassadors, who constitute what The Washington Times reports is "a confusing patchwork of policy fiefdoms inside the administration that lacks clearly defined lines of command and has the potential for miscommunication on a grand scale." So they brought to the State Department the kind of confusion they brought to the White House, and they did it at a time when foreign policy has to contend with international terror, nuclear proliferation, two wars and a dollar in decline. Moreover, they have antagonized the Clintons.


During the 1990s, such incompetence was not particularly dangerous. The economy was sound. The Cold War was over. We could sit back and enjoy the show as Bill and Newt entertained us. It was, as a gifted phrasemaker put it, The End of History. Now history has begun again. Nuclear arms could fall into the hands of the kind of barbarians who attacked New York and Washington on 9/11. Other nations are prospering with modern conceptions of economic growth, while here at home, the economy is weak and overseen by reactionaries with a 1930s grasp of governance and economics. Over at the White House, we see three amateurs and a carousel of incompetence.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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