One of Dear Ellen's "facts" in her article is: "Did only Jon Stewart catch Sean Hannity using video from one (large) teabag rally to illustrate another (small) rally?"

Well, first, I would remind both you and Jon Stewart (who, I'm told, a lot of college students who voted for Obama still think is a "real" newsman, instead of merely another liberal comedian) of something that you probably, if you were being honest, already know. And that is that the B-roll video accompanying any given feature story on TV, either news or commentary, may be sometimes mismatched by production staff, and that is not necessarily "evidence" of conservatives not being able to handle "facts," especially since, in the case cited, Hannity subsequently admitted "on air" that the B- roll footage was, in fact, uh, mismatched.

But, second, you know, liberal "journalists" just can't seem to help themselves. It's like playing poker with someone who has such obvious "tells" or "giveaway signs" that you know what they're going to do before they do it. And one obvious liberal lamestream media "tell" is referring to the TEA Party movement and its activities as "teabag" rallies, protests, marches, etc. It's either intentionally done to be a diminishing, dismissive and/or derisive term, or it's merely subconsciously done, without even thinking, for much the same reasons. In any case, it shows either a bias against or an ignorance about what the movement is all about, or both, which is, at one and the same time, both regrettable and unforgivable.....or would be to any "real" journalists, anyway. 

So, you go ahead and bewail the decline in "journalism" outlets in this country, Dear Ellen, while I will bemoan the decline in real "journalism" itself.

Dear Ellen also said: "When the reporters go, so do the facts. And their checkers."

Yes, and, for all the good you've done at your jobs lately, good riddance, because where have all the investigative "reporters" been for the last two years while Obama talked out of both sides of his mouth and claimed this and disclaimed that without challenge or proper vetting by your so-called vaunted "journalists"? Where were the "facts" then, Dear Ellen? Where were the "fact checkers" then?

Oh, I think I know. In fact, it's even still recently pretty revealing that more "news outlets" fact-checked Sarah Palin's new book than have fact-checked some of the monstrous nanny state legislation being forced through Congress, cobbled together in secret behind closed doors, by a stridently partisan liberal Democratic majority, in the dead of night, to what repeated polls clearly show is against the will of the American people. So, the liberal lamestream media is STILL not doing its job.

This may also be a contributing factor to why it took some news media types, who had been approved to cover the conference, over 8 hours to be registered and checked in.

This would simply be a funny fiasco if not for what is at stake: potentially trillions of dollars in regulatory actions and billions of dollars in aid to developing nations.

If by some miracle there were to be some kind of signed and binding agreement reached by the attending nations (there won't be, but Team Obama will be making noises about what a "breakthrough" deal The One brokered while there in just the last couple of days of a two-week conference -- "news" -- and spin -- at eleven), who would be in charge of monitoring all these agreed-to carbon reductions and oversight of all that development aid? Well, that would be the same entity that can't even figure out that 45,000 people won't fit into a 15,000-person building, the United Nations.

We've long known by how little they actually get done about world problems, and how long it takes them when and if they finally do, that the UN is more bureaucratic than effective.

And we know, at least from the "Oil for Food Program" scandal of a few years ago, if not many other indicators, that they are corrupt.

Now, we know they are also just plain inept.

So, ineffective, corrupt and inept? Uh, tell me again why do we give them a big, fancy, recently renovated, multi-million dollar building in New York to meet in, put up with their parking wherever they want and not paying their parking tickets, claiming diplomatic this and that all over the place, while we, as a single nation, also pay about 20 to 25 percent of the UN's operating costs?

I think we should remain a member (so we can retain some influence and keep tabs on what they're up to) but tell them that all member nations should pay the same amount for operating costs -- you know, make everybody "buy in" and make the UN operate on a budget -- and also that they should relocate to a new UN complex on some island somewhere.

I hear there are some in the South Pacific which the global warmers and some Copenhagen attendees are saying will be underwater in just a few years. Sounds good to me.

In the heat of an ambush in Afghanistan's most lawless province, 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Richard S. Weinmaster threw himself in front of a grenade to shield other marines in his platoon. Weinmaster was critically wounded by the blast, but the bloodied Nebraska native stayed in the fight, firing his weapon at the enemy position until he collapsed from his wounds. Looking back at the July 8, 2008, engagement, Weinmaster says, "I didn't do anything special. Everyone on my left and right would have done the same thing. I was just in the right place at the right time." For extraordinary heroism while serving as automatic rifleman, Weinmaster was awarded the Navy Cross.

Notice that Kutcher doesn't say "...of service to my country, or "...of service to my fellow Americans," just "...of service to our president."

Propaganda, anyone?

And I wonder how much Kutcher would actually inconvenience his Hollywood lifestyle to really be "of service" to anyone, anyway. During WWII, Hollywood actors his age, and older, were actually signing up to serve in uniform when we were at war. Clearly, "they just don't make them like they used to."

And I may be wrong, please correct me if I am, but I think about the only USO type of event that Kutcher has done was for the Coast Guard, at the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station at Ellington Field, Houston, Texas, and it was Kutcher, Kevin Costner and their movie director appearing there in conjunction with the making of their movie "The Guardian" about the Coast Guard Air Rescue Service.

So, who's your role model? Who's your hero? This guy, or this guy? You can probably guess who mine is.....and who mine is not.

Krugman's op-ed begins: "History shows that cap and trade, a system specifically designed to bring the power of market incentives to bear on environmental problems, does work."

Now, Krugman does have some relatively serious economics "chops." He majored in economics as an undergraduate at Yale, obtained a Ph.D. from MIT and then taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford before joining the faculty at Princeton in 2000 as professor of economics and international affairs. Well, my gosh, can we say Ivy League all the way? Makes one wonder how he missed doing something at Harvard, as well.

He is also a centenary professor at the London School of Economics and a member of the Group of Thirty international economic body, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations. His field is macroeconomics and one of his main influences is John Maynard Keynes. That last gives me some pause, because Keynesian economics is what Obama and his economic advisors also believe in and are following -- and we all can see how well that's been working out so far.

And in 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Of course, that impresses me less that it once would have, because Al Gore also won a Nobel for his An Inconvenient Truth and his world-wide posturing, pontificating and proselytizing first about the more alarmist "global warming" (until maintaining that rubric became simply unsustainable, PC-wise) and now for the more generic "climate change," all based on so-called "settled science" which has always had a significant contingent of fellow scientist debaters and doubters (derisively dubbed and dismissed as "deniers" by the Goracle and his greeny, gadfly "true believers"). Oh, yeah, and Krugman's award (and everyone else's Nobel Prize, for that matter) is also diminished by Obama also getting one for.....um, what? Oh, yeah, naively talking a lot about something which will never happen -- global nuclear disarmament -- and being in office for two weeks at the time he was nominated.

So, who am I to challenge Krugman on anything "economic"? No one, really. My goodness, you couldn't be much more well-credentialed than he is, now, could you? Well, except, as I said, that I don't think Keynesian economics works very well. But that's just based on my experience in watching Team Obama (loaded up with a whole bunch of other really smart folks -- er, in fact, many of them like Krugman) trying to make it work.....and it not working. (I know, my lying eyes again, huh?) Besides, the best I can do is balance my checkbook and manage my credit and my debt. (But, hmmm, even that means that I'm still doing better than all those super smart folks in charge of the federal government are doing with our tax money right now, doesn't it? Hey, just askin' - just sayin'.)

Krugman goes on in the article to express his optimism that the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference can make a real difference in getting the world on the right track to capping off what's bad and trading on what's good about this whole climate-change-and-cap-and-trade "thingy."

And Krugman's optimism seems further boosted now that we know President Obama is not only going to the conference, whereas before he wasn't going at all, but also that he's now going toward the end of the conference, rather than attending the beginning as penultimately planned, so he can maybe endorse something positive being accomplished -- oh my! Goodness gracious, I guess hope does spring eternal, after all.

Plus, of course, there's that conference goal of getting industrialized countries to pay developing countries under some kind of sovereignty destroying, "global governance" or "one world order" kind of thing for all the past pollution the wicked and powerful industrialized countries (that's us and Europe and more recently China and India) have inflicted on the world, especially those poor, picked on and undeveloped countries (I guess that's just about everybody else) who now want lots of the industrialized countries' money to, uh, become more "developed" themselves. I guess, so they can then become wicked and powerful polluters, too.

It's an idea somewhat like so-called African-hyphenated-Americans wanting reparations for slavery which was abolished in the U.S. over 140 years ago, whose ancestors may or may not have ever suffered slavery but who certainly personally never suffered it themselves, from, I guess for comparability's sake you would have to call them, European-hyphenated-Americans who have never been slave owners or slave masters and who likely never had any ancestors who ever were, either.

So, on all this optimism and economics stuff, I can doubt Krugman but can't really challenge him. I can challenge him, however, on the climate change issue, especially antrhopogenic change, because being an economics expert doesn't mean you know diddly squat more about something like climatology than I, or Fred, or Tom, do. And, like many Ivy League educated and Ivory Tower thinking liberals, it is Krugman's intellectual smugness and inability to resist getting into an area of pure opinion where he overreaches and attempts to "lecture" and where I can not only challenge him but also reveal his bias.

First, Krugman's credibility and objectivity suffer a little bit with me simply because he writes for the liberal NYT, which loves to leak national security secrets and undermine our military but which keeps getting scooped on "other" news stories by the likes of FOX News' Glenn Beck, an avowed non-journalist.

Second, Krugman's credibility on the issue here recently suffered even more with me when he appeared as a guest panelist this past Sunday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos and, when asked about the leaked emails he mentions here, looked straight into the TV camera, as if he really believed what he was saying (and that of course we should also), and said that what the climate change scientists had said in those leaked emails is not what they meant; that it was just scientists "informally" talking to each other -- wink, wink, nod, nod; and that the leaked emails did not mean what they clearly do mean -- and said -- that there is disagreement about unexplained and so far unexplainable data even among some climate change scientists (so that "science" is obviously not "settled" as so long claimed); that certain climate change scientists had been hiding data, manipulating other data, destroying still other data and denying legitimate Freedom of Information requests for some of their data, as well as avoiding full peer review of their work by other qualified scientists in the field who disagreed with them, instead denouncing the "disagreers" simply as "deniers" for years.

And then, third, there was this. Krugman goes on in the article cited here to say, "Of course, if things go well in Copenhagen, the usual suspects will go wild. We’ll hear cries that the whole notion of global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a vast scientific conspiracy, as demonstrated by stolen email messages that show — well, actually all they show is that scientists are human, but never mind."

Oh, Paul. Paul, Paul, Paul. You do so sorely disappoint. However smart you may be economically, does this put you, climatologically, in the camp of those who simply call any who question and doubt the so-called "settled science" of global warming/climate change the "deniers"? My, my, my, how intellectually insufficient, not to mention intellectually dishonest. The "usual suspects" will go wild? Does the "usual suspects" mean the hundreds and hundreds of reputable scientists world-wide who not only question but many of whom have also proven the global climate change "science" to not be "settled" but to be at least questionable, if not some of it outright false in many instances?

And, Paul, please -- "We'll hear cries that the whole notion of global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a vast scientific conspiracy"? First, you and I both know that one way to seemingly (but not really) reduce the credibility of an opposing point of view is to so overstate it that it sounds ridiculous, don't we? Nice try, but it doesn't work on all of us all the time, and it hardly ever works on those of us who have engaged in forensic debate and recognize the tactic.

Second, well, yes, "global warming" is just that, a hoax, or at least just bad science based on faulty computer models fed with inaccurate input data (GIGO) and propagated by global warming scientists hungry for government grant money and fame and opportunists like Al Gore who also want fame and to make millions from selling so-called "carbon credits." The "bad science" part of "global warming" has been pretty well proven by now; hence, in part, the shift from its advocates calling it "global warming" to now calling it "climate change."

So far as the "whole notion" of "climate change" being a hoax perpetrated by a "scientific conspiracy" of whatever size, "vast" or not, however, I don't know. Perhaps. The recently divulged emails to which you refer have certainly confirmed that not all the "climate changers" are among the most honest and forthright clutch of conspiracists caught by their own inadvertent confessions.

And, no, Paul, I won't "never mind" when you say, "...stolen email messages that show — well, actually all they show is that scientists are human, but never mind."

When Bill Clinton became president, he considered Krugman for a leading post. Krugman was interviewed but his outspokenness was reportedly "the main reason the Clinton administration didn't offer him a job." Krugman says he would not have been interested in such a job, anyway. (Well, then, Paul, why did you go for the interview -- just for "funsies"?) He told Newsweek, "I'm temperamentally unsuited for that kind of role. You have to be very good at people skills, biting your tongue when people say silly things." In his New York Times blog, Krugman repeated that statement, saying that he was "temperamentally unsuited to politics."

Well, Paul, here, I think you're right. You probably are "unsuited to politics." You're "suited" to economics, so perhaps you should just stick with that. You know, something you no doubt know a lot about. Because you're also apparently "unsuited" to an intelligent discussion about climatology, climate change and whatever conspiracies may or may not be afoot about all that. On those things, your liberalism apparently blinds you, or at the least gives you tunnel vision.

And, I'm sorry, but I also sometimes choose not to be "very good at people skills," at biting my tongue when people say silly things, too. That's why I didn't bite my tongue when I saw the silly things you said on TV and have now written in your article.

(Yeah, the liberal lamestream media can cover this story and Tiger Woods' foibles all day long -- after all, tabloidism does sell -- but the Fort Hood massacre or the fraud perpetrated by climate warming "science" and its proponents, not so much.)

But, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. A House committee is holding hearings on the presidential state dinner gate crashers who the committee asked to come testify and is considering now subpoenaing for failure to appear; the head of the Secret Service is testifying before the committee and admitting Secret Service failures (probably after being told by some powerful part-timer in the current Obama administration that he, as a dedicated and loyal career federal employee, had to "fall on the sword" for this); at least three Secret Service agents have already been suspended, may be still further disciplined and their careers are probably already ruined; yet the Obama White House is claiming Executive Privilege to prevent its Social Secretary from even appearing and being questioned? The WH Social Secretary? Really?

Well, exactly what, or whom, is the WH really trying to protect here? Funny, but I would think the WH Social Secretary would NOT, in the normal course of her official duties, be privy to ANY national security or other classified information which might be inadvertently revealed if she testified before a Congressional committee.

Now, on the other hand, she might just know why she didn't have anyone from her office, or was not herself, helping the Secret Service agents identify properly invited arriving guests, which has been the norm in the past. And that would seem to be an important thing to learn about this whole fiasco. Maybe she and the other Social Secretary Office people just wanted to enjoy the dinner party instead and were therefore "too busy partying" to do their jobs. Or, to give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she was personally too busy checking flower arrangements, seating charts, table settings, or something else that social secretaries do, instead.

It's just a theory, mind you, but especially after all the incessant liberal carping about George Bush sometimes invoking Executive Privilege to prevent disclosure of real national defense and/or homeland security information in open Congressional committee hearings, it would seem Executive Privilege is not warranted simply to protect the WH Social Secretary from possibly being forced to admit she was at least complicit by omission in a social, as well as a security, faux pas and at least be subject to the embarrassment, if not the dismissal, which should rightfully accompany such an occurence.

So, with Category A, it's either usually something so professorial, convoluted, theoretical, ideological, word-parsed, esoteric or ephemeral -- the White House spokespersons like to say "nuanced" -- as to wind up being meaningless. (Poof! Words just disappearing into thin air. Quick, try to grab their meaning before they're gone.)

Or, with Category B, it simply just flies in the face of all known facts on whatever the subject is. (The bigger the lie, the more believable it becomes if stated with authority. After all, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson's unfortunately not everywhere all the time to shout out "You lie" at most of the venues at which the president speaks, you know.)

"Now, let me be clear,” Obama said as part of his long-awaited and much deliberated Afghan War speech, using the West Point Corps of Cadets as a photo op backdrop (while some of them appropriately nodded off during his dispassionate delivery, either because they were bored or because it was getting close to their normal "lights out" bedtime of 2200 hours (10PM) and they normally would've been busy staying awake by studying or polishing something between 8PM and then, instead of sitting crammed together in an auditorium, listening to a monotone, toward the end of their day.

But, back to Obama's "Now, let me be clear.”  “There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war during this review period.”

Well, this particular "Let me be clear" falls into Category B above, the outright lie which flies in the face of facts. Al Gore would call them "inconvenient truths" of the non-warming kind. In fact, near the end of 2008, now a year ago, the Bush administration gave Obama a detailed proposal for a similar troop surge in Afghanistan of the type which General McChrystal subsequently requested in August 2009 and which Obama has now, finally, at least partially approved in December.

Obama also said that "Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive."

This statement is not only another (still -- yet -- always -- and apparently forever more) "oh, me, poor me" dig at "the mess" Bush left him but also another Category B, one that is simply a straightforward lie, if "straightforward" and "lie" together is not too oxymoronic for you.

The historic record shows that George Bush never denied commanders in Afghanistan any of the support they requested, and Donald Rumsfeld, Bush's former SECDEF, has now challenged Team Obama to prove, rather than just claim, otherwise. Obama's press secretary Robert "frat boy" Gibbs' response to that was to "clarify" that Obama meant that was true only in 2008. But, oops, that was when Robert Gates, Bush's former successor to Rumsfeld but also Obama's current SECDEF was in charge. So, when challenged by Rumsfeld yet unable to adequately respond to that, did Gibbs intentionally throw Gates under the bus, or was he just "thinking on his feet," being glib.....and being stupid at the same time?

“I've spent this year renewing our alliances and forging new partnerships,” Obama said. “And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world, one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.”

Obama himself may actually believe that, somewhere up in his ivory towered and naive thought processes, so perhaps this "Let me be clear" is one of those in Category A, so highly "nuanced" that we ordinary human beings simply can't grasp its multi-dimensional complexity. In fact, however, although Obama has made near-obsequious overtures to Muslims in speeches, in meetings, during America-is-a-bad-country apology tours and in literally bowing to a Muslim king, nothing much has changed.

Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America's decline in the eyes of foreign nations.”

It's true that liberals incessantly pointed to such indicators as the Pew Global Attitudes surveys to prove that Bush's "cowboy diplomacy" and "my way or the highway" unilateralism were destroying our reputation around the world, and especially among Muslims. Of course, now you don't hear much about liberals ranting and raving about the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey, I guess because Bush is gone now, so there's no point -- the surveys can't be used to Bush-bash.

But wait...

Mr. Ajami continues, “Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama.”

Ohhhhhhhhhh, snap! Whatcha gonna say 'bout THAT, Mr. Narcissus Nuance?

Bush's so-called "cowboy diplomacy" and apparently "shoot from the hip" decision-making style were never really either. His so-called "unilateralism" and "my way or the highway" about Iraq was, in fact, based on a U.S.-led 33-nation coalition. And his comment about being "the decider," although ridiculed by liberals and certainly less than articulate, was, in fact, true. He was decisive, and you could usually count on his meaning just what he said, too, whether you liked whatever it was or not.

On the other hand, Obama's American apology tours, his bowing and scraping (literally), his talking, talking, and still more talking, his seemingly forever outstretched hand of "the power of soft diplomacy" (Huh?) and his dispassionate, deliberative, almost professorial, dithering over hard decisions haven't really improved things for us so far.

Yes, the Europeans and many socialists and tinhorn dictators around the world like him better than they liked Bush.....because he is more like them than Bush would ever be. But they also like him because they perceive him as indecisive, weak and naive, perhaps even feckless. They think Obama is the neighbor's nice, sleek and friendly doggie, which when petted wags his tail and is no threat to the trespasser in the yard. Bush, on the other hand, was more like the Texas rattler which would leave you alone if you did the same but which would first rattle and warn but then bite you in a heartbeat if you messed with him too much. And other world leaders knew it, too. They may not have liked it, but they knew it.

So, let me be clear about this, what this all equals, so far at least, is that our friends and foes around the world may "like" Obama but don't like us, that's us, as in the U.S., and what we stand for, any better and, even worse, the worst among them now respect, much less fear, us even less.

"Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference," advertises the Danish tourism commission, which is helping the Goracle promote "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," his newest book about global warming in all of its alarming modalities (no doubt, whether based on any real data or not).

"Tickets are available in different price ranges for the event. If you want it all, you can purchase a VIP ticket, where you get a chance to shake hands with Al Gore, get a copy of 'Our Choice' and have your picture taken with him. The VIP event costs DKK 5,999 and includes drinks and a light snack." Ohhh my, drinks AND a light snack, too! How wonderful!

How much is that in American dollars? The currency conversion equates 5,999 Danish kroners to $1,209 USD.

"If you do not want to spend that much money, but still want to hear Al Gore speak about his latest book about climate challenges, you can purchase general tickets, ranging in price from DKK 199 - 1,499 depending on where in the room you want to sit." "There will be large screens, so that everyone will get a good view." Thus, the Danes advise about the December 16 event. The Danes are so practical about these things.

But wait, there's still MORE.

The White House press office announced last week, "For the first time, the U.S. delegation will have a U.S. Center at the conference, providing a unique and interactive forum to share our story with the world."

Well, I think "our story" is already pretty well known to "the world." Some of "the world" may not like it, but they all know it. We are, currently at least, the only remaining world super power and in our 200-plus years, we've whipped the butts of about half of "the world," freed the other half and also along the way lent a helping hand wherever and whenever needed to friend and foe alike. We are the reason that the French speak French and not German, that the Germans were helped to rebuild, and the reason that the Japanese are now one of our strongest allies, instead of having been nuked into extinction in the mid-1940s. We are also the reason most of the Muslims in the world who are free, are free. We are the most powerful, most generous, most tolerant, most free and freedom-loving nation on the face of the Earth, and if we can get Obama and his left-wing henchmen out of the White House and the Congress soon enough, we may remain that way.

So, zippy-dee-do-dah, that's just peachy having a "unique and interactive" U.S. Center at the conference, but forgive cynical little ole me, I'm just wondering how much money Fat Al and the Danish tourist bureau hopes to make off of "greenies" affluent enough and stupid enough to spend their money to buy into all that hype, and, even more importantly, how much taxpayer money that "marvey" U.S. "unique and interactive" Center and all those traveling government bureaucrats are going to cost the American taxpayer while they're over there for a week, yakking and yukking it up, talking and trading, placating and promising, eating and effusing, drinking and discussing, posturing and posing, handshaking and hobnobbing.

And we (I mean Obama et al.) just might have, however obliquely, also "promised" to "trade away" our sovereignty while at the global climate conference as well. (But God help Obama if he does anything even close to that, and I sure hope he knows it, too. The American people will put up with a lot, but not everything all the time and not some things at all. Talk about some "lone wolf" crazy maybe really going "crazy" -- that kind of "betrayal" by Obama would be about all it would take. For most of us, it would be grounds to pursue impeachment, but for some, it would be that feared, long-range rifle shot that would set us all back decades in just all being Americans together, whether hyphenated ones or not. I don't like Obama or his policies, but I don't wish him dead -- just out of office.)

But the Copenhagen climate change conference is all just such a sham and a show, based on as much addle-brained alarmism as any accurate analyses. Ironically, maybe it's appropriate that the Goracle should show up with all his "greenie" gadflies, to add to the side-show, climatological carney atmosphere of it all (puns intended where appropriate). The so-called "settled science" of man-made climate change is NOT settled and becomes more shaky with each revelation of more and more scientists questioning its basic premises, coupled with increasing evidence of the climate change scientists themselves "cooking the books" to reinforce their theories and negate, or just plain ignore, any contradictory data. It's just too ironic for words that they, who denigrated all "non-believers" as deniers, turn out to be themselves the real "deniers" now.

So, to me at least, it's just another gross waste of taxpayer money by politicians and bureaucrats acting like elitist, globe-trotting gliterrati at a time when our country and its working people are still in pretty dire economic straits and that's where our pols and 'crats should be putting their focus, their effort and their energy. It's Obama's stupid upside-down economic plans, stupid! Stay home and in your jobs and working hard to fix that, you stupid political and bureaucratic snobs. Then, you can party, to celebrate actually having done something to help the American people, instead of just helping yourselves to more and more of their tax money.

To put it not too nicely, it all reminds me of something we sometimes used to say in the Army to illustrate when something struck you as disgusting or really made you sick: It's enough to gag a maggot.

I guess it's just funny how different people respond differently to the same thing. And a lot of that probably has to do with our backgrounds and key reference points in our past.

You see, I am white (well, except for the Cherokee part) and grew up in the South, and as a boy I always saw Aunt Jemima in the ads as a strong and good figure.

I guess that's in part because I had known my own "Aunt Jemima." There was an old black couple -- salt of the Earth, honest as the day is long, hard-working people -- who had worked for hire for my grandfather on his farm for years until he retired from farming, and they all stayed in touch with each other afterward, as we would say, just living "up (or down) the road a piece" from each other.

Heck, when I spent part of my summers as a boy at my granddad's house, part of that time was always spent over at Uncle Eddie's and Aunt Effie's (my "Aunt Jemima") anyway. And I was as safe, and well taken care of, and well disciplined, and maybe even better fed (in terms of good, old fashioned Southern cooking) as when I was at home, too.

I can't remember now if I ever knew their last name or that I once did know it but have just now, after all these years, forgotten it. But, I still clearly remember them and that I loved and respected them for who they were, and that they loved and took care of me like one of their own.

So, thanks, Aunt Jemima, for calling up some fond memories of good people and good times from a long, long time ago. I guess it does us all good to sometimes "go home again," if only in memory.

I guess one could say that at least she doesn't (yet) have as many "assistants" as her equally spendthrift husband -- our Dear Leader -- has "czars" (last count on that was somewhere upwards of 33, or 34, or 35). And since we don't know exactly how many of them there are, much less how big each of their staffs are, we also don't know how much they are all costing us. We just know that, although other presidents have also had "czars" and other assistants, none has ever had as many of either as our current one, The One. (So, don't try to tell me that Chicago-style cronyism doesn't pay, either, in both Barack's and also apparently Michelle's playbook.) 

But, one does have to wonder why Michelle O. needs so much help, so many assistants, all at taxpayer expense, when Jackie Kennedy had ONE, Hillary Clinton had THREE and Laura Bush had ONE.

"In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much." "See, that's why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service."  Michelle Obama

Gee, Michelle, are you referring to when you left the big law firm and began your "public service" by taking a big Chicago hospital PR job created for you after your husband became a State senator and that hospital received some State funding and which, I'm sure only by sheer coincidence, also raised your salary to $350,000 a year? THAT kind of "public service"? THAT kind of "sacrifice"? Wow, what a gal! 

Of course, Michelle Obama does not get paid anything to serve as the First Lady. She just gets to live in a fully wait-staffed mansion, with free room and board, personal chef service, free transportation of any type she needs, any time she needs it, plus have designer this and designer that offered to her to wear all the time, and, of course, she doesn't have any official duties to perform, any more than did any of her predecessors. It's obviously a rough life, to be sure, but, as they say, somebody has to do it.

And all this hasn't stopped "Michelle, ma belle" from hiring an unprecedented number of "staffers" to cater to her every request, all in the midst of our "Great Recession" when regular Americans are losing their jobs and in some cases their homes. And when the president and his first lady both might give some thought to setting a good example, showing some understanding and personal restraint, and practicing some frugality like many of their fellow Americans are having to do, instead of living like a king and queen and spending taxpayer money like it was going out of style (which, in fact, it is, as there is less and less of it, and more and more debt.)

Just think about the fact that Mary Lincoln was publicly criticized for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War, and Mamie Eisenhower had to pay the salary for her own personal secretary. Of course, Lincoln and Eisenhower were both Republicans, so that probably made the difference.

Herewith, according to Canada Free Press, the names and numbers pertaining to Michelle O's big band of "helpers," to include some you may not be able to tell from their job description exactly what their "job" really is, with occasional parenthetical comments by your not-so-humble and sometimes snide and sarcastic but seldom snarky "opinionator":

1. $172,200 - Sher, Susan - Chief of Staff

2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. - Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady

3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. - Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary

4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. - Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady

5. $90,000 - Winter, Melissa E. - Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady

6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. - Deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady

(Okay, doesn't that make two Deputy Chiefs of Staff to the First Lady? Or at least one-and-a-half -- half of # 5 and all of # 6? And which Deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady, each receiving $90,000 per year, is the real one?)

7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. - Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady

8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. - Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady

9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper - Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady

10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. - Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary

11. $65,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B. - Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary

(Okay, so there's already a White House Social Secretary (see # 3 above), who supposedly reports to the First Lady, as well as a Deputy Associate Director, Social Office (see # 18 below), AND a Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary (see # 20 below). So, with #'s 10 and 11, there is either a misprint, a typo of some kind, or there really are ALSO two, full-time Deputy Directors and Deputy Social Secretaries, each paid the same amount of $65,000, for a combined total of $130,000 per year, for the same job, and who also work for the First Lady. Hmmm, I think I know where we can save $65,000 per year right away. Which one of you two Deputy Directors and Deputy Social Secretaries wants to go? Toss a coin and call heads or tails.)

12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. - Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator for the First Lady

13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. - Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady

14. $90,000 - Lewis, Dana M. - Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady

(No telling what poor Dana Lewis, with a job title as vague as that, has to do to earn her $90,000 of taxpayer money a year. Whatever, whenever, I would guess. Poor woman probably seldom even sleeps.)

15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. - Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary to the First Lady

16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. - Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide to the First Lady

(Wait a minute. You've already got: (a) a Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady at $75,000 per year, (b) a Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator for the First Lady at $62,000 per year, (c) a Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady at $60,000 per year, and (d) a Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide to the First Lady at $50,000 per year. That's four people, at a total cost of $247,000 per year, all focused on the advancing, scheduling, event coordinating and aiding of the First Lady's travel. Just how much does Michelle need to travel, especially separate from her husband, whose travel is planned down to a gnat's eyelash and always includes everything and everyone traveling with him, as well? And, by the way, isn't the Secret Service -- you know, those guys and gals already on the taxpayers' payroll to protect and travel with the president and his family members -- already responsible for most of the advance work, scheduling and trip coordination for any and all presidential and/or family member forays, foreign and domestic, anyway? So, why are we paying an "extra" almost a quarter of a million dollars in taxpayer money for all these people to do that just for the First Lady? Hello? Anyone?)
   
17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. - Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady

18. $45,000 - Tubman, Samantha - Deputy Associate Director, Social Office

19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. - Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff to the First Lady

(So, there's a Chief of Staff to the First Lady, at least one-and-a-half but maybe two Deputy Chiefs of Staff to the First Lady, AND now we find out there's ALSO an Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff to the First Lady? It makes one wonder, with all these "other assistant" folks doing all that they supposedly do to earn their taxpayer salaries, just how much "chief of staffing" does there need to be? I guess the more "others" you have to keep up with, though, the more "chief of staffing" you need to do, huh?)

20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. - Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary

21. $40,000 - Bookey, Natalie - Staff Assistant

22. $40,000 - Jackson, Deilia A. - Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady

(Okay, there's: (a) a Director of Communications for the First Lady, (b) a Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady, (c) an Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary to the First Lady, (d) an Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady and (e) a Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady. First, isn't all this -- press, correspondence, etc. -- just all "communications" of one type or another? So, why can't you have a Director of Communications, with one Deputy Director for Press and one for Correspondence and just be done with it? Second, I know the First Lady sometimes has to make public appearances and say a few words and I can imagine that a lot of people write to the First Lady on a range of topics which they think she can better address than her husband, the president, can. But, please, five different people, each with important-sounding titles and hefty salaries, in addition to however many minions work for each of them, all to help the First Lady "communicate"? Especially when she's already supposed to be such an intelligent and articulate Ivy League educated and Harvard Law School graduated woman? And especially when, as First Lady, she's not supposed to ever say anything important about policy, or much of anything else, anyway? Oh, by the way, and not to cause any trouble, mind you -- and certainly not to encourage any MORE Michelle "helpers" -- but on the other hand and just for the sake of contrariness, how can you have an Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady and a Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady without first having a Director of Correspondence for the First Lady? Just wondering. Sorry, but my mind just works that way sometimes.)        

Well, aside from now almost mind-numbingly wondering when it's proper to use "for the First Lady" or "to the First Lady" in some of these numerous job titles (as well as wondering if # 21, poor Natalie Bookey, as the $40,000-a-year, just plain "Staff Assistant" who doesn't seem to "belong to anybody," therefore is picked on and "belongs to everybody" -- "Hey, YOU!"), I think it is still safe to say that never has there been anyone in the White House with such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life and communicability.

Vogel's article is what I call a "wedge piece" -- one that purports to be objective (and which can often even appear sympathetic) but which actually is intended to drive a wedge of some kind between people or within and among a group, in this case the TEA Party movement, and thus weaken a position, a person or a group by suggesting that a weakness already exists -- sort of a "self-fulfilling prophecy" meme.
 
Vogel's first subtle attempt at "disparate delegitimization" is:

 "...the movement, which — depending on who's doing the telling — took its name either as an homage to the 1773 Boston tax revolt that played a major role in sparking the American Revolution or from an acronym standing for 'Taxed Enough Already.'”

My response:

It's not an either/or choice and to suggest so is proceeding from a false premise, whether intentionally or due to ignorance. First, TEA Parties originally took their name from the acronym for Taxed Enough Already, i.e., TEA, which is the reason, by the way, that it should always be presented that way -- "TEA Parties," and not merely "tea parties." Besides, if it were always correctly presented as the acronym TEA, it would make it at least more cumbersome for critics to use the gay sexual slur of "teabaggers" to describe and deride TEA Party participants.

TEA as an acronym captured the main points of that to which TEA Partiers originally objected, to wit, too big government bent on too much spending and therefore too much taxing, as exemplified first by the Bush/Obama $700 billion TARP bailouts and then exacerbated by the Obama $787 billion so-called stimulus plan. Just from October 2008 to February 2009, a mere four months, Americans had seen our national debt increased by a breathtaking $1.49 TRILLION. And we already had all indications (which have since proven all too true) that the new president, with his handmaiden Democratic Congress, was just getting started. And all and almost every one of them (the president et al.) were doing all this without listening to objections from We the People to slow down, have more debate and at least read the bills which they were pushing at breakneck speed through the Congress. So, we also had all this sudden debt increase, and therefore projected tax, without feeling we were even being heard, much less adequately represented, as well.

I don't remember U.S. presidents bowing to anyone before. Being polite, yes. Shaking hands, yes. Being gracious and friendly, yes. Sometimes even hugging people, yes. But bowing, no. I don't know if it's Obama's lack of understanding protocol or lack of backbone, coupled with too much interest or eagerness in currying favor, but I don't like my president -- uh, pardon me, the U.S. president -- bowing to anybody. A head nod, okay. Bending deeply from the waist, no.

No, Mr. President, it's better to (now, finally) keep wearing your U.S. flag pin, putting your hand over your heart whenever the National Anthem is played or our National Colors pass by, returning military salutes to the military if you like, but don't bow to anybody. Our country doesn't, or at least it hasn't so far, and neither should you.  

Well, I wasn't going to write anything about this, because as an old soldier and former Military Police officer I've got a lot of strong feelings and opinions about it, but it's finally gotten to a point where, with some of the other things I'm hearing said and claimed and assumed about it, I'll probably kick the dog, break something or shoot something if I don't write something. And now that I am, I'll probably write a lot.

Just say it, already: "Muslim terrorist." Say it again: "Muslim terrorist." There, see? Not really all that bad, was it? Well, not, that is, unless you have developed an absolute gag reflex to saying the word "terrorist," much less the phrase "Muslim terrorist," like Barack Obama's White House, Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security, and, most recently it seems, the U.S. Army, or at least its top "leadership" in the form of General George W. Casey, Jr., current Chief of Staff of the Army.

It was a surreal few moments when, within three hours of Major (Dr.) Nidal Malik Hasan committing mass murder at Fort Hood on Thursday, November 5, 2009, President Obama first appeared before TV cameras in joining a meeting of Native Americans already ongoing at the White House. He spent the first few minutes giving "shoutouts," that is recognizing people in the audience before him, to include crediting one individual for receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor (a military award) who had never served in the military but who Obama himself had presented with the Freedom Medal (a civilian award) just months before (uh, right person, wrong award, Mr. President -- see what happens when you go off teleprompter?).

Then, he praised the Native American group's work on whatever it was they had been working on and pledged his undying support for what almost sounded like reparations for Native Americans for how badly they had been treated ("by the white man" was of course implied or at least understood). I guess he was "identifying" with them about their ancestors' dispossession, much as he, as a black man, no doubt "identifies" with his ancestors' slavery. (I can "identify," too, by the way, less because of some idealistic notion than because I actually am part Cherokee.)

Those first few minutes sounded like Obama was speaking before the local chapter of the Rotary Club. Then, he finally addressed the Fort Hood massacre, his main message being that we didn't know all the facts yet and should be careful not to jump to conclusions. (Maybe he did learn his lesson after all, after having jumped to conclusions himself about the professional white police sergeant arresting the big mouthed black college professor.) I don't recall now if Obama identified the Fort Hood murderer as a Muslim at that time, but I do clearly recall that the words "terrorist" or "terrorist attack" never passed his lips.

Then, later in the afternoon, we had another surreal TV appearance, this time by Army Chief of Staff, General Casey, who said: "What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here." What?! A greater tragedy?! Now, General Casey was talking about the shooter being Muslim, because he was making the point that we have and need Muslims in the Army and he was trying to forestall any backlash against Muslims in the military because the Fort Hood shooter had by then been named as a Muslim.....but, ah, still not as a terrorist. But "our diversity" being damaged would be an even greater tragedy than the mass murder of unarmed, innocent soldiers and civilians on an Army post?! This from the top "leadership" of our Army?! Are you nuts, General? Hmmm, sounds like the good general had been given his talking points by the White House and was being a good little general. Notably, he also did not say anything resembling the "T" word.

Well, let's hear it for political correctness by Obama, the White House AND the military, shall we? Maybe a whole bunch of PC by a whole bunch of people is what led to, or at least permitted, if not enabled, what Major Hasan did at Fort Hood. I've often said that I'm not too much of a PC guy, but I will be one of the first to give someone the benefit of the doubt. It seems, however, that a lot of PC and giving too much benefit of the doubt are what left Major Hasan free to do his killing.

Why was a medical officer who was supposed to give a major medical presentation to his doctor colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center allowed instead to give an hour-long Power Point presentation about Islam? Why was an Army officer who often clashed with his peers and some of his superiors over the Army's missions in Iraq and Afghanistan not disciplined, or at least severely questioned about it? Why was an officer whose performance was lackluster and who had that verified in his Officer Efficiency Reports (OERs) still promoted to major? Could it be that something like "affirmative action" or "minority quotas" had anything to do with Army promotion boards? Why was a psychiatrist who was counseling soldiers returning from combat zones, many suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), not also counseled himself? If his links to a radical Islamic imam and attempts to contact al-Qaeda were already known to the FBI for months, why wasn't he on some kind of watch list which would have prevented his going into a Killeen, Texas, gun shop in August and paying over $1,000 to buy a state-of-the-art FNH FiveseveN (5.7mm) semi-automatic pistol which comes with three 20-round magazines but for which you can also pay a little extra and get 30-round magazines? My gosh, if you get the 30-round mags, plus already have a round in the pistol's chamber, you're walking around with 91 rounds of ready-to-go firepower. 

Since that surreal Thursday morning more than a week ago now, I've listened to and seen much of the print and TV coverage about the Fort Hood massacre, what there has been of it by the so-called mainstream media, and noticed how the lamestream media have also avoided using the "T" word, much less coupled it with the modifier "Muslim" or "jihadist," and Heaven forbid that anyone should utter "Islamofascist," despite the fact that, with each passing day, more and more has come to light about Hasan's association with his former radical Muslim imam and attempts to contact al-Qaeda. In fact, some in the liberal media, out of their usual misguided "compassion" and "humanity," have predictably tried to make Hasan into some kind of victim.

For those who are covering the Fort Hood massacre at all, and especially for those who are covering it but ignoring or downplaying that the killer is a Muslim or who are trying to make the mass murderer out to be some kind of "victim," I have this to say:

She is also obviously an expert shot and a petite female version of any one of Clint Eastwood's characters on whose bad side you would NOT want to be. "Well, do ya,.....punk?"

"Could Sgt. Munley, hit in the wrist and both thighs, really be blamed if she'd ducked for cover? She didn't. From all reports, she stood her ground under fire, calmly reacquiring her sight picture, putting four rounds right where she wanted, in the advancing murderer's center of mass. She fired until he dropped. The killing ended."