Quotes of the day
posted at 9:48 pm on October 3, 2009 by Allahpundit
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“‘The intelligence that we had from the U.S. Olympic Committee and Chicago bid team was that it was very close and therefore well worth our efforts,’ said Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House advisor. ‘The message was that … a personal appeal from the president would make a huge difference.’”
***
“To hear Obama insiders discuss it, the president was just too competitive not to make the trip. ‘Whether we tried or not, we owned it,’ said one senior White House aide. ‘But you know how competitive he is. If we got a shot, he wanted to take it. The Chicago folks definitely made it known that they wanted him to come. But the decision was his. He felt if he could go and make the case and promote the country and Chicago, he was going to do it.’…
Within a week, that position was beginning to change as Mayor Daley pressed his case for a presidential pitch, which would put the country’s leader alongside his global counterparts. But according to White House officials, there were two factors even more important than the influence of Daley: the White House was already engaged, and the president himself liked the sporting challenge.”
***
“Arrogance. Good ol’ American arrogance.
Instead of dedicating three days and nights working the IOC members, as we hear Tony Blair did for London in its successful bid for 2012, President Obama figured all he had to do was show up for a few minutes here at Bella Center after an all-night flight on Air Force One.
He had normally blasé media types pressing their noses against the windows of this sleek convention center just to get a glimpse of him stepping into his flown-in Cadillac. His very presence shook down the tight schedule the IOC usually likes to keep. His very name peppered the cacophony of unfamiliar languages all over town with little hints of recognition.
But Obama was long gone by the time his ripple factor had flattened out.”
***
“Here’s what I would like to talk about in all this: The First Lady and her husband made terrible presentations to the IOC! In retrospect, it makes complete sense that they got the boot in Round 1.”
***
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That’s one adviser under the bus.
An aide throws Obama under the bus.
A reporter throws Obama under the bus too.
Under the bus goes Obama and Michelle.
It is encouraging to see some the media put the blame squarely where it belongs. On Obama’s shoulders and his aides. When the MSM finally has to report the truth, they will universally blame the aides first. I mean seriously, in their eyes, Obama is too big to fail.
csdeven on October 4, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Maybe he should have told his Special Olympics bowling joke.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 7:41 AM
Until it is pointed out that Obama is giving lip service to our efforts in Afghanistan and this was a ploy to save face after his embarrassing failure with health care reform.
This is a huge deal and he needs to be excoriated for it mercilessly until every drop of schadenfreude is squeezed out of it.
csdeven on October 4, 2009 at 7:44 AM
I certainly think it’s wrong for a President to lobby for something as minor as the Olympics. Until things change, the Office of the President of the United States is the one office seat that pretty well controls a main part of world affairs. It demeans the office to use that power for something as trivial as the Olympics. This week he’s pitching Chicago like a Tin Man pitching aluminum siding, next week he’s trying to broker a peace deal in the Middle East. See, there’s something very wrong in using the office for trivial items.Then of course, there’s the reason of, why Chicago? We already know about Obamas legendary Chicago political machine politics of corruption. Are we to believe this is simply trying to do ones best for ones home town, or to pay back political favors so others can make millions.
Jeff from WI on October 4, 2009 at 7:47 AM
Considering his blaming of Booooosh was an epic fail, he should have. Obama tried to politicize the games. He believed he could get away with it because he is filled with hubris. He and the democrats have fallen for the lies they told about the international community’s hatred for America. My mom is in Europe right now. The Europeans don’t even talk about America. The democrats told us all that the anger toward America led the news every day.
csdeven on October 4, 2009 at 7:50 AM
My fantasy world:
After the 2010 elections Obama will make a hard right toward center-left to save his 2012 arse or else he will find himself in impeachment proceedings with some pissed off congressional freshman steering the debate. The question is how much damage will he inflict on us in the mean time?
pugwriter on October 4, 2009 at 7:50 AM
What the Republicans should be pressing is the opportuntiy to drive a wdege between the Dems and the Latino vote. Obama went to the IOC and lost his bid, but he could have sided with Brazil to start with and held the posiution that South America really did deserve the opportuntiy more than the USA. The right should beat him up some on that one.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 7:54 AM
You lie!
drjohn on October 4, 2009 at 8:19 AM
Yea… to make him look like a bigger fool…
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Careful there jerrytbg. Obama may be a lot of things, but his is not a fool. I don’t for a second believe that all the problems in our economy, our industries or our government right now are the result of foolish mistakes. I think Obama nad his extreme left gand set our to destroy the American economy so they could replace it with a socialist one. That may look foolish to you, but they are doing exactly what they set out to do.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 8:28 AM
d1Carter…..Yes, his (their) plan is working. Killing America is going as planned. But, the money from Olympics to the thugs of Chgo. and parts unknown did go awry. Everything else they have planned is on schedule, killing as many of our troops as possible, breaking the economy, killing off the old people, getting rid of the middle class, installing Sharia law, importing as many muslims as possible, the list goes on.
The sad part is 50% of America agree with him.
nondhimmie on October 4, 2009 at 8:29 AM
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 8:29 AM
This is a great point, Jeff. Now, are guys like Ahmadenijad or Vladmir Putin going to want to make concessions to the same man who couldn’t sway the IOC? I would’ve understood him making a pitch for the Olympics in Chicago if he did it by video or even by satellite. Instead, he went all-in using taxpayers dollars, Air Force assets, etc., to fly to Copenhagen to give what amounted to a fifth grader’s assessment of “what the Olympics mean to me.”
The guy is so full of himself he cannot lead. It was a stupid, stupid blunder.
If the jurassic media would do its job, we wouldn’t have a president trotting off to fluff his feathers in front of an organization as goofy as the IOC. Maybe not. I mean, Obama believes he can do anything and get no negative press. In many ways, he’s right because within minutes of the IOC’s announcement the liberal media pushed stories onto the web defending him or explaining how it wouldn’t hurt or even help his presidency.
Ampleforth on October 4, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Wow, Althouse nails it down tight.
After FLOTUS’s intro, I imagine TOTUS had those OIC judges throwing up in their laps.
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 8:34 AM
Again, do not project your view of success onto Obama. When he meets with the principles in the Middle East issues, he may see success as getting Putin and Ahmaddenijad to help him bring America to its knees so together they can reshape it into the new socialist model. You’d see that as a major failure, but that does not mean OBama would. It may well be his goal.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 8:36 AM
All true …however…I’m talking about HIS view of the World View of him…
Aren’t you embarrassed by this truly sick narcissism on display?
Cripes…He thought it was going to work…
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 8:40 AM
Here’s the SNL skit on Hulu.
Tanya on October 4, 2009 at 8:40 AM
The US Olympic Committee executives sacked employees to give themselves 30% pay increase, were a now show at the advance presentation, yet flew over a million miles partying on globe trotting outreach missions. The Chicago Way, Obama went in for the heist doing his Copenhagen hold-up shtick, and got booted off the stage.
MEANWHILE, our troops are being killed in Afghanistan. Obama hasn’t yet read McChrystal’s report.
Why do the US and NATO announce in advance where our forces will depart, providing the enemy better opportunity to attack the rear line before it pulls back to town?
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 8:40 AM
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 8:34 AM
I suppose sports writers should determine the three magic words from Obama’s boring speech, and write essays per word to lend credence to The One, or submit an essay “How I Will Help Obama”. /his original school speech outline assignments
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 8:45 AM
If they keep that up I may have to start watching SNL again.
conservnut on October 4, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Embarrassed? No, I’m not embarrassed. In fact, I see it as one of the very few chances America has of surviving Obama’s first term. I WANT American’s and the world to see how narcissistic he is, and I WANT them to be repulsed by it. The last dammed thing I want is for him to be able to continue to hoodwink people into thinking he is some omnipotent, all knowing all seeing savior of the world. The sooner they all see him for what he is, the more likely they will understand he can’t be allowed to continue with all his plans.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 8:49 AM
It’s a good start, except for failing to recognize what Obama HAS accomplished for himself and the Left (next week):
Stealing tax funds for STIMULUS to pay off Obama’s own personal-politico debts, giving billions of our tax dollars to bail-out losers and dictators and to develop Brazil’s oil industry that will in turn profit China (not US), and forcing the government to buy GM (while killing Saturn) rather than promote capitalism, AG Holder dismissing the established judicial case built against the Philadelphia New Black Panther voter intimidation thugs, creating new jobs for presidential czars while unemployment mushrooms.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Hey Mike,
I yield on all your points…
I just have to say …not since carter have we seen such a display of incompetence in a president when dealing with decorum, within the office, concerning international affairs at any level…
It will take many cycles to repair the damage, unless we elect someone who puts America First…
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Thanks for the link. It’s surprisingly cutting, isn’t it.
Obama’s two main accomplishments: Jack and Squat… even though with his Dem-controlled Congress he could order all gays to get married and require cars be made to run on marijuana.
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 9:02 AM
The SNL audience will shoulder a great proportion of Obama’s increased government financial burden on citizens. They’ll certainly be stuck with the problems Obama causes longer than seniors will be. As soon as the young adults start feeling the pinch and squeeze from their pay, you’ll hear them squeal, as they really are expecting something for nothing that someone else should be paying for them. Whether SNL ridicules their audience or Obama or both, those interested will have to wait to see.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 9:05 AM
True, but then, like a favorite Bumper Sticker I saw recently, “Sometimes It Takes a Carter to Get a Regan” Our political history shows that the pendulum will swing back to the right, with some proportion to the energy with which it was pulled to the left. I’m thinking right now that we may be at risk of that taking things too far to the right. There are so risks for our nation there too.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 9:08 AM
The SNL skit’s an ice breaker, I hope. But more likely, GE/NBC management will put the quietus on much more criticism like this. In fact, I imagine a few SNL folks are already doing time at the GE/NBC woodshed.
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 9:08 AM
Wow, didn’t expect to see that; a decent amateur in chief skit. As conservnut said, may need to start watching them again. Thanks for pointing it out.
ray on October 4, 2009 at 9:10 AM
I’d like to add..
…so therefore we must keep the pressure on to prevent that from happening, by continuing to expose these ordained policies from ever occurring… ‘ )
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 9:15 AM
Hey, went to look at that SNL skit, and it was really pretty good. Probably racist, but good.
MikeA on October 4, 2009 at 9:16 AM
Ford’s first automobile frame was made of hemp and was fueled by hemp. At the time, hemp was the #1 US domestic product that our Puritan pilgrims used, and since the founding of our nation. It produces the most durable (and comfortable) of fabrics, ropes, paper, fuel and developing industrial purposes (bodywork frames rather than petroleum plastics or metal work). I would bet that our Constitution is written on hemp paper. Anyway, it was the American robber barons who owned forested lands and petroleum reserves (Hearst, Rockefeller) who campaigned for Congress to ban hemp, and propagandize through the media they owned. The ban seems to coincide with the repeal of Prohibition and WWII. Americans left the farm for the cities for factory jobs, and no longer had memory to prioritize the beneficial industrial boon that hemp produces better and “cleaner” ecologically than any other US product. And the rest is history, too.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Interesting.
When the gubmit starts making cars you can smoke, I may start buying gubmit cars.
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 9:22 AM
I’m not so sure the pendulum would swing that far…
We see a new awakening occurring at the grass roots level from all political persuasions …I’m encouraged.
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 9:23 AM
Maybe. Maybe not. Easy enough to use SNL to test the waters not only of public approval, but how the Board will vote after audience polls are taken. There are bound to be some GE/NBC executives who have their discontented ax to grind, and will use SNL to sharpen the edge. Maybe just for the sales dollars, as there IS AN AUDIENCE (perhaps advertising patrons) and the time is right (NYC always kicks a man while he’s down) or the skit would never have been approved for airtime.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 9:25 AM
In the meantime, Peggy Joseph still waits for her mortgage to be paid and a full tank of gas.
csdeven on October 4, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Hey Mave,
You forgot to say that it grows like a weed...;)
jerrytbg on October 4, 2009 at 9:28 AM
The SNL skit was great!! Let’s see how the Liberals can take a joke.
yoda on October 4, 2009 at 9:31 AM
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 9:22 AM
There’s hemp and there’s other stuff.
As with cattle, there are breeds for beef and there are dairy breeds.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 9:32 AM
I may start buying gubmit cars.
petefrt on October 4, 2009 at 9:22 AM
Now that GM is Government Cars, their advertisements have no basis in fact. They claim the pie in the sky, and there’s no way to force them to produce their research statistics. Losers fall for that tripe.
maverick muse on October 4, 2009 at 9:36 AM
the olympic committee is nothing more to me than the u.n. sports division.
they have just as much interest in aiding obama in bleeding the U.S. since one way or another it lines their pckets.
this was staged to help garner sympathy for our puppet in chief and hopefully swing some of his policies which hurt the U.S., but aid dirtbags in the u.n. and olympic committee and everywhere else tyrants rule.
Sonosam on October 4, 2009 at 9:47 AM
Can’t they find somebody to do a better Obama impersonation? This guy looks nothing like him, doesn’t act like him, and doesn’t sound or talk like him–at all. Rush Limbaugh has parodies of Odumbass, and you’d swear it’s really him talking. They’re hysterical!
Special K on October 4, 2009 at 9:50 AM
The Won and Ms. O represented us as the ugly Americans the world thinks we are, smug and arrogant. Didn’t he say he was going to change our image in the world? Must be like the stimulus and will start to really work next year.
Kissmygrits on October 4, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Jarrett is a disaster for Obama. She is an amateur whose only political experience is in local Chicago politics. I understand loyalty, but she is killing him.
WarEagle01 on October 4, 2009 at 10:10 AM
No, I couldn’t stomach a whole episode. Small sketches, one at a time, are all I can handle without projectile vomiting.
Mangy Scot on October 4, 2009 at 10:27 AM
All the better. Let the fall come from within.
Mangy Scot on October 4, 2009 at 10:29 AM
The SNL skit is instructive in its banality. The audience is not aumused, it is shocked, because it has never heard the unwashed truth about the lack of accomplishments of their hero – they cannot deny each factoid, but nobody has dared put them together for them, so they have not bothered to do so themselves. So much for the worldly New Yorker and the “reality-based community”.
Obama’s easily mocked mannerisms and his transparent narciscism were untouched – the actor actually played him sympathically, and got (nervous) laughs out of simply reciting the facts of what everyone should have been reading in the papers for months.
Think about that. This is the degenerated state of our media’s ability to do more then cheerlead, and of the ability to think skeptically in half of our electorate.
drunyan8315 on October 4, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Good catch, drunyan8315! I was thinking that myself. What if they had added his mannerisms and speech patterns? It would have been a different skit and would have added more impact. Then it really would have been worth watching. It probably wouldn’t have gotten by the censors. Too bad, because I may have gone back to SNL. Haven’t watched for a couple of years. The liberal bias was just too much.
BetseyRoss on October 4, 2009 at 10:53 AM
There were singular incidences of his mannerisms, though I’m not particularly knowledgeable as to how good (or bad) an impersonation it was. In particular, there is that sudden raising of his voice on the last word of a phrase.
Weirdly, the audience was laughing harder at the creative check marks (Hell No) than at the statements that went with them.
Count to 10 on October 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM
1921 C DRUM on October 4, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Without the brilliant halo hanging over him we can see his true colors…….. GREEN
bluegrass on October 4, 2009 at 12:25 PM
It was mentioned on another thread that there was no criticism, by the dems, of other dems applauding the “Iraqi shoe thrower”, who threw his shoes at Bush. Your comment represents the pacifist, “turn the other cheek” section of the Republican party.
Have you not been paying attention to the Tea Partyers? We are not going to take Obama and his policies lying down–like good Republican doormats–anymore.
Therefore, it is with glee, that we mark this blow to Obama’s ego.
Some may say that this is the equivilant to all the members of the IOC throwing ALL their shoes–but I won’t be so petty…
lovingmyUSA on October 4, 2009 at 12:46 PM
<blockquote>”It’s a secret ballot. You can’t necessarily be certain that the people who tell you they’ll vote for you ultimately will,” Jarrett said. “So I’m sure they did the very best they could do to get the intelligence they had.”
One more endorsement for the open non secret union election if there was ever one.
VikingGoneWild on October 4, 2009 at 1:29 PM
WHOOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!
One more endorsement for the open non secret union election if there was ever one.
VikingGoneWild on October 4, 2009 at 1:30 PM
What is truly despicable in this whole thing is that Hussein spent only twenty five minutes with General McCrystal aboard Air Force One on the ramp in Copenhagen. I’m convinced he did this only as a cover for potential criticism of his spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to go to Copenhagen to prostrate himself in front of the IOC. His actions tell the real story here. A twenty five minute meeting with a field commander engaged in mortal combat is merely photo-op/sound bite leadership. He doesn’t give a damn about the troops who are doing the dirty work for this country and the world. He was more concerned with bringing badmiton competition to Chicago.
Nozzle on October 4, 2009 at 2:06 PM
Wouldn’t you love to hear What Gen. McCrystal thinks of Obama? But as a military man I’m sure he will only ever be extremely respectful of his Commander in Chief.
SouperConservative on October 4, 2009 at 7:35 PM
Maybe the IOC doubting the One’s sincerity in his presentation since he was the only one to use a telepromter!
chickasaw42 on October 4, 2009 at 10:52 PM
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