* Richard Holbooke, Barack Obama's special envoy who is the chief strategist for the crucial issues concerning Pakistan and Afghanistan, just happened to have once been on the Board of Directors at American International Group Inc. -- and in early 2008 no less. That's when the company formulated those bonuses that Obama is so (after the fact) ticked off about.* The White House glibly announces that the President's budget will produce deficits of about $6.9 trillion over 10 years. That's an astronomical figure, no doubt about it. However, the Democrat-controlled Congressional Budget Office will announce today that the numbers are actually higher still. Like another 20% more! That's about $1,500,000,000,000 (1 and a half trillion!) over the already outrageous numbers Obama's crazy budget predicted.
* Obama's Jay Leno appearance contained several bitter moments but none more so than when Obama disparaged athletes who participate in the Special Olympics. Had a conservative (or even a Republican!) made such a tasteless gaffe, he would have been taken apart by the media.
* The last words about the infamous "Gift Gaffe" (Obama's cheap, bonehead DVD set given to Great Britain's Prime Minister) turn out to be "Wrong Region." Which means that when Gordon Brown tried to watch one of them the other night, it turned out that they wouldn't even work. Team Obama hadn't even bothered to get DVDs that would play in European players! Thus, all that showed on the PM's screen was, "Wrong Region."
* And finally, from Tim Graham at NewsBusters comes an example of a most inappropriate (even heartless) manipulation of language from Team Obama:
Even as President Obama compares bankers to suicide bombers, his Homeland Security Secretary (Janet Napolitano) is suggesting the T-word, terrorism, is too inflammatory and representative of old-fashioned "politics of fear." She's announced a new term: "man-caused disaster." From an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel:
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?
NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
