The media’s love affair with a disastrous president

As the bad economic news continues to emanate from the United States — with a double-dip recession now all but certain — a reckoning is overdue. American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barack Obama’s rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since.

The President Who Wasn’t There

We have a president named “Obama.” If you believe your media — (hah!) — he is a kind of Űbermensch, a more-than-human giant intellect. Or, as one addled dork said two years ago, Obama must be A Light Bringer. That’s why the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee got the hots for him so bad that they had to give him the big prize before he did anything. Like Algore’s Peace Prize, it was awarded for postmodern (Po-Mo) — that is, completely fictional — good intentions. No actual achievements were wanted or needed.

Since Marxist college professors are not going to do this job for us, I will now perform a postmodern “deconstruction” of the so-called “president” of the “United States.” (Those sneer quotes are Po-Mo sniggers for things that are obviously fictional except that normal people think they are real. Like “money” and “freedom.”)

Shut up, Egypt is Muslim

Supporters of Egypt’s various new political parties gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday for what was supposed to be a unity rally. In a portent of things to come, however, the gathering was hijacked by masses of Islamists who intimidated the members of liberal and secular parties out of the square. America’s most important Arab ally is hurtling toward an Islamist takeover and the Obama administration is egging on the transition.

The Islamist factions in Egypt, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the more strident Salafists, have been cautiously and quietly building their political organizations ahead of November’s parliamentary elections. Earlier this year, they were circumspect about involvement in partisan politics, making statements that gave the impression they would serve more as spiritual guides than contenders for power. This was a ruse. The objective of the Islamist groups has always been to implement Sharia law in Egypt, and the downfall of the Hosni Mubarak government has presented them with their best and perhaps only opportunity to get it done. After all, it is a revolution; the time to impose radical change is now.

The Chosen One

In our time, asking how a young man of scarce achievement got into position to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president courts the contemporary synonyms for “impious”: “birther,” “conspiracy theorist,” and, of course, “racist.” Granted, to inquire into what formed a president is not as important as to understand what he does. Nevertheless, because fully to know where anyone is going requires grasping whence he comes, let us open ourselves to wonder how, minus miracles, a 10-year-old boy without obvious talent who had lived in Indonesia since age six ends up with an eight-year scholarship to Hawaii’s most exclusive school; a scholarship to Occidental College; a transfer into Columbia University; acceptance into Harvard Law School, and editorship of its law review; and how he goes from job to prestigious job without apparently mastering any of the previous ones. No wonder some of Barack Obama’s supporters treat him as if he were anointed by an extraterrestrial power.

Weiners, Wusses and Wonks

What hath Anthony Weiner wrought? Clarity.

It is now crystal clear that our elites — the ruling class, the insiders who tell us where, when, and how to live our lives–are nothing more than a collection of Wieners, Wusses and Wonks. And as surely as the words of telegraph inventor Samuel Morse (“What hath God wrought”) signaled the beginning of the modern mass communication era and the transformation of the United States for the 20th century, so will this Democrat leader’s grotesque digital dissemination of his private parts bring about the transformation needed by this century — the realization that our political and media elites are among the worst this nation has to offer.

As we go over the cliff, just who is in the driver’s seat?

A few months ago, I asked the question, “How did we get here?”

If you have to ask where “here” is, then you may as well not read this column. But if you, too, believe that “here” is the end of the road for Western civilization, then you may as well read it and weep.

If you have to ask where “here” is, then you may as well not read this column. But if you, too, believe that “here” is the end of the road for Western civilization, then you may as well read it and weep.

I have explored a few possibilities already to explain the collapse of American values and American traditions in the past 50 years (which roughly correspond to my own life span up till now). Most of them seem to be linked to the phony Marxist philosophy of “redistribution of wealth,” whether in the guise of the New Deal, the Great Society, social justice or “the myth of permanent plenty.”

“Atlas Shrugged”-The Movie

Atlas Shrugged is a novel that has generated inspiration and controversy since its publication in 1957.Its theme is the role of individual achievement in society and its goal is to demonstrate what can happen when individual achievement is undervalued, suppressed and demonized. Complex characters embody heroism and evil, in a plot that combines drama, mystery, romance, and science fiction – the result is ultimately inspirational, not apocalyptic.