Blows whatever way the wind blows

At least his O lovers can't say this is a lie, since they actually see him speaking.

http://noblesseoblige.org/wordpress/2008/08/20/the-obama-iraq-documentary-whatever-the-politics-demand/

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some shiny paper and pretty bow, delivering a canned speech, taking no questions, making empty promises, telling lies easily exposed with a little research on McC's voting record, spread the wealth socialism (exposing her deep ignorance on how the US tax system functions), thrusting Joe the unlicensed back into the spotlight despite the fact he has been exposed to a sham and would like to get beyond his 15 minutes (lost count how many times she has said his name...sometimes 3 or 4 times in one sentence), tying him to hockey players and high school friends, McCain their savior, Barack the evil wealth spreader...still a bag of poop.

According to TSO who was at the �Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball�, this newly sworn-in President for the first time in 56 years blew off the ball (that�s 14 Inaugurations).

The American Legion sponsors the ball, which recognizes recipients of Medal of Honor, the nation�s highest military award. It started in 1953 for President Dwight D. Eisenhower�s first inauguration.

Event co-sponsors include 13 other veterans service organizations, among them the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

So where was our new President instead of honoring Medal of Honor recipients who by some miracle are still alive? According to Huffington Post, this was his schedule for Inaugural celebrations;

Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host 10 official inaugural balls:

� Obama Home States (Illinois and Hawaii) Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center.

� Biden Home States (Pennsylvania and Delaware) Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center.

� Africa on the Potomac inaugural celebration at Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va.

Mr. Wolf from Blackfive sends along this link to which Inaugural Balls Obama actually attended last night.

Blackfive, which I read occasionally for military pieces, confirmed that President Obama did not come to the inaugural ball. So I became curious because the only two sources were two blogs and one source that consisted of initials. Therefore, I did what any rational person would do: I contacted the American Legion to get the straight story from the people who would know. I was put in contact with a very pleasant gentleman named Craig Roberts who is the American Legion's Media Relations Manager and after our conversation he e-mailed me this statement which I will include in its entirety:

The American Legion, as it has on every inauguration evening since 1953, hosted the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Banquet & Ball on January 20th. The quadrennial event is co-sponsored with fourteen veterans service and military service organizations and honors recipients of the Medal of Honor. Forty-seven of these heroes attended this year�s event which was held in the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel.

President Obama was invited but did not attend. Vice-President Joe Biden did appear, however, and was very warmly received. The new President�s absence was understandable considering the unprecedented logistical challenges presented by the vastly increased number of visitors to this inauguration and the necessary attendant security measures. The American Legion, as an organization, does not feel offended or �snubbed.�

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Roberts for taking my call and taking the time to compose this statement so that I can share it on behalf of the American Legion. So to those fellow Obama supporters that think this ball did not happen, it did. It was omitted from the media outlets it was omitted from because of logistical challenges due to the extraordinary number of people that flooded Washington D.C. to see Barack Obama be inaugurated as the 44th president and it is not yet on the American Legion's website (as I type this at 8:30 A.M. on 1-23-09) because of some difficulties in updating the website. However, there will be media coverage of the event forthcoming.

I have found out also that the likely reason that Barack Obama attended the auxiliary balls that he did is because six of the balls that he attended were held in the same building. Therefore, attending those balls and the others that he attended were the most efficient with regards to security. It is no secret that President Obama has had questions surrounding his security, that is evident by observing that he was the earliest presidential candidate ever to get a security detail. If the Secret Service felt it prudent to guard him so early in the campaign can the reader imagine what the Secret Service feels is prudent now that he is the President of the United States?

The most likely reason that President Obama did not go to the "Salute to Heroes" inaugural ball is because it was held in the Renaissance Hotel which consists of 16 floors. There was an event called the "Illinois Party - Presidential Event" held at the Renaissance the night before that the then-President-elect did not attend either (I have a call in to the President's press office asking for confirmation of this information which was given to me by one of my sources for this story). Given the amount of time and resources it would have taken to clear a 16 floor hotel as well as protect it while President Obama was inside, I can only guess that he was advised by his Presidential Protection Detail not to attend either inaugural ball because of the building and the inherent problems in securing and then protecting it. The sheer number of people crowding the streets and staying in the hotel surely presented a formidable screening problem as well. But, there's your story... it's not as sexy as "Barack Obama Hates The Military" but it is the truth as best I can tell after talking to the organization responsible for hosting the event and doing some research and educated guesswork about why a security team wouldn't want to protect a principal in the Renaissance with more than 2 million extra people in Washington D.C.

Update: It would appear that, according to Stars & Stripes that Obama had some Medal of Honor recipients at an inaugural ball that he attended. This gives the number of living Medal of Honor recipients as 99, but I believe that two have passed away since that number was compiled leaving 97. There are 7 in this picture and there were 47 at the American Legion inaugural event. I'm curious if there were more at the event this photo was taken at.

Further update: I received an e-mail from Mr. Roberts today (which I would have gotten yesterday if I had not miscommunicated my e-mail address to him) with his original statement along with a new statement. I will include both statements in their entirety:

"The American Legion, as it has on every inauguration evening since 1953, hosted the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Banquet & Ball on January 20th . The quadrennial event is co-sponsored by fourteen veterans service and military service organizations and honors recipients of the Medal of Honor. Forty-seven of these heroes attended this year's event. President Obama was invited but did not attend. Vice-President Joe Biden did appear, however, and was very warmly received. From The American Legion's point of view, the new President's absence was understandable considering the unprecedented logistical challenges presented by the vastly increased number of visitors to this inauguration and the necessary attendant security measures. The National Adjutant of The American Legion states that, as an organization, The Legion does not feel offended or "snubbed" by the President's failure to appear."

"We extended an invitation as we always do. There are numerous Balls and we know he can't attend them all. Of course, we would have loved for him to make an appearance, but he didn't. It's a logisticalnightmare. He did meet with the troops at the Commander In Chief's Ball, and we are grateful for that. Our Ball wasn't about the President; it was about the Medal of Honor recipients and the veterans and families who were there. We are grateful that the Vice President appeared, and our guests were very appreciative.

"That having been said, there are much more important issues to dwell on, which we intend to do. We look forward to working with the new administration on ensuring full and guaranteed funding for VA health care services, and the very best treatment for our service people who have been wounded, and on the quality of life of all members of the Armed Forces and their families, as well as the maintenance of a national security force that will deter any enemy from considering an attack on America."

in my area. The company is going to build 51 more. There goes the view for sure! The people that live in the valley below this mountain are always complaining about them.

Seriously, not every state can, or will go along with wind turbines. They're big, ugly, and noisy. They do not provide jobs for local people. They do provide jobs for the company maintaining them.

Glenn Beck. (Photo: Jennifer Ackerman / Deseret Morning News)

Idiott wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiott wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiott, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
- Bob Dylan

One thing is certain: martial arts movie star Chuck Norris does not like President Obama. Not at all. Not one little bit. Norris dislikes Obama so much, in fact, that he discussed running for the office of president of Texas, which doesn't exist, as part of a larger move by him and a variety of other right-wing groups to overthrow the American government and return honor and decency to the country.

No, really, he said all that, and more. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. The best part is where he writes, "Remember the Alamo!" Great stuff.

Or something.

There's more. The owner of right-wing web forum Free Republic, Jim Robinson, was recently forced to post a truly deranged piece of apologia regarding the attention his web site recently earned from the Secret Service. "Unfortunately," wrote Robinson, "we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service."

"Keep," wrote Robinson in closing, "your powder dry." Yeah, O.K., good thinking.

Or something.

Last month, Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity ran a poll on his web site. It asked readers what kind of revolution they'd prefer: military coup, armed rebellion or war for succession? "#3 seems most realistic," opined Hannity, "since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states. Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other. Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt."

That page has since been removed from Hannity's web site, surely due to some technical glitch, but before it was taken down, "armed rebellion" appeared to be the most popular choice of the three.

Of course.

Earlier this week, right-wing loudmouth Glenn Beck asserted during his radio show that President Obama's lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research would open the way for the genetic development of a new master race. "So here you have Barack Obama," said Beck, "going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing - remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let's put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don't we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it! And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up. "

One assumes this forthcoming master race will enjoy minds of greater volume and depth than Mr. Beck's, because, well, people just can't get much dumber than this. It would be a profound waste of genetic material if we went out and created some master race that, like Messrs. Beck, Hannity and Robinson, was incapable of rational thought or speech. Just an idea.

There is even more out there like this, from all over the place, with each seemingly trying to out-weird the other. So, yeah, it appears a fair portion of America's hard-right population, along with most if not all of their spokespeople and commentators, have been driven absolutely, positively bat-poop crazy by the election of and policies by Barack Obama.

The trend has been sucking in more and more high-profile members of the conservative community. Newt Gingrich was forced to jump up and down on Rush Limbaugh for saying he wants Obama to fail. Limbaugh responded by calling Gingrich "a fly-by-night operator," who can't be depended on and who "will sell you out." Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah came close to threatening Arizona with an infestation of crickets to shut John McCain up about earmarks in the budget. Conservative commentator David Brooks called House Minority Leader John Boehner "insane" after Boehner called for a complete freeze on federal spending as an answer to the ongoing economic crisis.

Perhaps the most resounding cannonade fired at conservatives by a conservative was David Frum's Newsweek article lamenting the sad state of the party, and the ongoing catastrophe represented by the ascendancy of Limbaugh. "Even before the November 2008 defeat," wrote Frum, "even before the financial crisis and the congressional elections of November 2006 - it was already apparent that the Republican Party and the conservative movement were in deep trouble. And not just because of Iraq, either (although Iraq obviously did not help)."

"Every day," continued Frum, "Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than ... not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him. But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us."

Unfortunately for Mr. Frum and any conservatives who share his concerns, it does not appear any of the hard-right noisemakers have any intention of moderating either their tone or their tantrums. Maybe it will be another couple of months before the swelling from that electoral bruising goes down enough for these people to calm themselves, but at this point, it ain't happening.

The hardest part for the GOP? Neither Obama nor any other Democrat have been required to say a word about any of this. The right-wing shouters do their shouting, get shouted at by other right-wing shouters, and a perfect circle of Republican self-destruction is formed.

Stay tuned ... and, yeah, keep your powder dry.

Or something.