The Obama Administration Chews the Fat
By Matt Purple on 5.26.10 @ 6:07AM
When the president announced that Michelle Obama would be heading up an anti-obesity task force last summer, most of us shrugged. Most presidents like to send their wives off on a health-related mission of some sort. Laura Bush worked closely with heart disease and breast cancer charities. Nancy Reagan lectured children on the dangers of drugs. Hillary Clinton tried to burn down the entire American health care system.
In retrospect, we probably should have been a little more concerned. In October, Mrs. Obama confessed that, as recently as two years ago, Sasha's and Malia's meals had been chock full of fast food and pizza. When the Obama family pediatrician told Michelle that this wasn't doing her daughters' health any favors, the First Lady's jaw hit the table. "I was shocked," she said.
The same woman who was floored by the news that Wendy's Baconators are unhealthy was assigned to spearhead the government's anti-obesity policies. That probably should have set off a few alarm bells.
Read the rest of the article here.
Showing posts with label The American Spectator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The American Spectator. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Same Old: Liberals Then & Now
By Ben Stein on 4.15.10 @ 6:09AM
Editor's note: Back in 1976, when Gerald Ford was President, Ben Stein, then a consultant on Washington and conservatism for the Normal Lear show All's Fair, sent this memorandum to its creators:
What I don't like is the way rich liberals, who have made their money through the operations of the capitalist system and who would be miserable bureaucratic cogs in a socialist system, are nevertheless socialists. I suspect that a large part of their motivation is a style of asceticism which has been fashionable among the rich since the time of the Pharisees. Another motivation for the rich liberals to dislike the capitalist system is that they have already gotten theirs and they don't want to be challenged by other people coming along and getting theirs.
I don't like the way liberals of any income group assume that they have a monopoly on morality and that the only conscionable position on issues is their position. A sanctimoniousness runs in the liberal mind which is a direct descendant of the Calvinist assuredness of moral superiority. Liberals assume that any challenge to their position comes from impure motives, often motivations having to do with "profit and loss" instead of the "human" factors that liberals allegedly consider. I resent the assumption of liberals that only they truly understand human needs and suffering.
To read the rest of this article, click here.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
Editor's note: Back in 1976, when Gerald Ford was President, Ben Stein, then a consultant on Washington and conservatism for the Normal Lear show All's Fair, sent this memorandum to its creators:
What I don't like is the way rich liberals, who have made their money through the operations of the capitalist system and who would be miserable bureaucratic cogs in a socialist system, are nevertheless socialists. I suspect that a large part of their motivation is a style of asceticism which has been fashionable among the rich since the time of the Pharisees. Another motivation for the rich liberals to dislike the capitalist system is that they have already gotten theirs and they don't want to be challenged by other people coming along and getting theirs.
I don't like the way liberals of any income group assume that they have a monopoly on morality and that the only conscionable position on issues is their position. A sanctimoniousness runs in the liberal mind which is a direct descendant of the Calvinist assuredness of moral superiority. Liberals assume that any challenge to their position comes from impure motives, often motivations having to do with "profit and loss" instead of the "human" factors that liberals allegedly consider. I resent the assumption of liberals that only they truly understand human needs and suffering.
To read the rest of this article, click here.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
Liberal vs Conservative: A Difference in Species
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 4.15.10 @ 6:09AM
WASHINGTON -- The pro-abortion lobby cannot be happy about a law that has just been passed and signed in faraway Nebraska. There anti-abortion forces must have clout. The law bans most abortions 20 weeks after conception on the basis of "fetal pain.” Thus the Nebraskan pro-life advocates are saying that the suffering of a fetus is at least as important as the suffering of a chicken at a poultry processing plant or of a stray dog picked up by the animal control authorities. For Liberalism this could mean still more Liberal crack-up, as sympathizers for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other advocates of animal rights are put in the awkward position of contemplating the pain suffered by that biological inconvenience that civilized Americans still call a fetus. If they contemplate with sufficient intelligence, they might conclude that a fetus has rights.
Naturally pro-abortionists are promising a huge legal battle. There will be claims that the fetus does not suffer. Experts will be called in. The case will be as acrimonious as every abortion controversy has been since 1973 when through the courts pro-abortionists forced legalized abortion on the entire country. Had the question of abortion been left to legislatures, doubtless the process would have become legal in some states but not in others. Federalism's genius would abide. Diversity would exist.
Yet Liberal justices on the Supreme Court found a "right” in the Constitution that never is mentioned in that document, the right to privacy. Thus was abortion brought down on the nation, not through the will of the majority but through the willfulness of a minority, the Liberals.
The entire controversy brings to mind a thesis of mine about Liberals and conservatives that I elaborate on enthusiastically in my new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, which comes out this coming week. The Liberal has the political libido of a nymphomaniac, at times of a sex offender. It is impossible to restrain. By comparison, the conservatives' political libido is more subject to reason and restraint. Almost nothing restrains the Liberals' political activism. Conservatives' are more disciplined. Process matters to them.
Consider how differently the conservative President Ronald Reagan handled abortion from how President Barack Obama handled healthcare. Reagan opposed abortion but realized that a large number of Americans favored it, perhaps not a majority but a large enough minority to render it reckless for him to force the issue. He chose persuasion and restrained his political impulse. Obama undertook healthcare reform recognizing that it was controversial. As Obamacare became ever more far-reaching and opposition to it grew to the point that a majority opposed it, the President just rammed his reform through. Today 58% favor repeal. There has been violence from both sides. The country is torn over yet another Liberal grand design.
In the culture wars there is a new battleground, healthcare. The battle is going to last as long as the abortion battles have lasted, unless Obamacare can be repealed. Increasingly the law looks like it might be repealed for the law really is a slapdash creation, but you see my point. As with abortion so too with healthcare the Liberal political libido went wild. No restraint was shown. Tremendous anger replaced the mild dissatisfaction a significant number of Americans felt about the healthcare system.
In Hangover I argue that so different is the Liberal political libido from the conservative political libido that at least when it comes to politics Liberals and conservatives are not members of the same species. Let those who decry "gridlock” on Capitol Hill think about that. When the Liberals and the conservatives confront each other, it is as though Homo habilis were confronting Homo sapiens. That is not a happy thought, though I at least take heart in knowing which of the aforementioned species survived.
Bob Tyrrell is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, is being published this month by Thomas Nelson. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.
He makes frequent appearance on national television and is a nationally syndicated columnist, whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, National Review, Harper's, Commentary, The (London) Spectator, Le Figaro (Paris), and elsewhere.
Bob is also an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and a contributing editor to the New York Sun.
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 4.15.10 @ 6:09AM
WASHINGTON -- The pro-abortion lobby cannot be happy about a law that has just been passed and signed in faraway Nebraska. There anti-abortion forces must have clout. The law bans most abortions 20 weeks after conception on the basis of "fetal pain.” Thus the Nebraskan pro-life advocates are saying that the suffering of a fetus is at least as important as the suffering of a chicken at a poultry processing plant or of a stray dog picked up by the animal control authorities. For Liberalism this could mean still more Liberal crack-up, as sympathizers for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other advocates of animal rights are put in the awkward position of contemplating the pain suffered by that biological inconvenience that civilized Americans still call a fetus. If they contemplate with sufficient intelligence, they might conclude that a fetus has rights.
Naturally pro-abortionists are promising a huge legal battle. There will be claims that the fetus does not suffer. Experts will be called in. The case will be as acrimonious as every abortion controversy has been since 1973 when through the courts pro-abortionists forced legalized abortion on the entire country. Had the question of abortion been left to legislatures, doubtless the process would have become legal in some states but not in others. Federalism's genius would abide. Diversity would exist.
Yet Liberal justices on the Supreme Court found a "right” in the Constitution that never is mentioned in that document, the right to privacy. Thus was abortion brought down on the nation, not through the will of the majority but through the willfulness of a minority, the Liberals.
The entire controversy brings to mind a thesis of mine about Liberals and conservatives that I elaborate on enthusiastically in my new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, which comes out this coming week. The Liberal has the political libido of a nymphomaniac, at times of a sex offender. It is impossible to restrain. By comparison, the conservatives' political libido is more subject to reason and restraint. Almost nothing restrains the Liberals' political activism. Conservatives' are more disciplined. Process matters to them.
Consider how differently the conservative President Ronald Reagan handled abortion from how President Barack Obama handled healthcare. Reagan opposed abortion but realized that a large number of Americans favored it, perhaps not a majority but a large enough minority to render it reckless for him to force the issue. He chose persuasion and restrained his political impulse. Obama undertook healthcare reform recognizing that it was controversial. As Obamacare became ever more far-reaching and opposition to it grew to the point that a majority opposed it, the President just rammed his reform through. Today 58% favor repeal. There has been violence from both sides. The country is torn over yet another Liberal grand design.
In the culture wars there is a new battleground, healthcare. The battle is going to last as long as the abortion battles have lasted, unless Obamacare can be repealed. Increasingly the law looks like it might be repealed for the law really is a slapdash creation, but you see my point. As with abortion so too with healthcare the Liberal political libido went wild. No restraint was shown. Tremendous anger replaced the mild dissatisfaction a significant number of Americans felt about the healthcare system.
In Hangover I argue that so different is the Liberal political libido from the conservative political libido that at least when it comes to politics Liberals and conservatives are not members of the same species. Let those who decry "gridlock” on Capitol Hill think about that. When the Liberals and the conservatives confront each other, it is as though Homo habilis were confronting Homo sapiens. That is not a happy thought, though I at least take heart in knowing which of the aforementioned species survived.
Bob Tyrrell is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, is being published this month by Thomas Nelson. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.
He makes frequent appearance on national television and is a nationally syndicated columnist, whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, National Review, Harper's, Commentary, The (London) Spectator, Le Figaro (Paris), and elsewhere.
Bob is also an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and a contributing editor to the New York Sun.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Ben Stein on Obama's Socialized Medicine Bill
The American Spectator
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein
We've Figured Him Out
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein
We've Figured Him Out
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
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