WUI (Writing under the influence)

Somebody once said we are all Americans, sometimes born in the wrong places.
On a warm autumn day in 1986, while enjoying beer with my college buddies,
I decided to join my new homeland.

I've come to appreciate the ideals that helped create this great country.
Liberalism, political-correctness, multiculturalism and moral equivalence
are destroying it.

This old house Grovenet Wal*Mart Visiting Poland American wine better than French.

Monday, March 30, 2009

 
Soccer fans and plenty of alcohol on both sides equals stupid Polak and Irishman watch.


Is this why some lefties think Eisenhower was the last "good" Republican president? Or was it really highways?

Meanwhile, Obama wants to negotiate with people who hate their own children.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. The Internet elected him, the Internet may do him in.

Friday, March 27, 2009

 
I was initially opposed. But now that I know all new presidents are invited, I've changed my mind. I just hope people behave with decency: no turning backs, etc. Only liberals should be knows for stooping so low.

So it snows as it hasn't in many, many years in some states. Then, when spring comes, the snow melts and there are floods. Obama says it's because of global warming. He is not stupid (is he?) so he must be doing this on purpose. In fact, the flodds can be blamed on global cooling, which resulted in all this snow falling during witner. If there was global warming, there wouldn't be any snow to melt. Am I missing something here?

 

Poker room floor is done


All is needed now is some trim and a few touches of paint, and I could host my first poker game in April.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

 

Poker room update



Yes, recycling is good, I guess, but in this case it sucks a little. First, I bought some laminate flooring from somebody who decided he didn't like it after he had used it in the kitchen. He advertised on Craigslist that he had so many square feet of the material because his kitchen was that big (or small.) The price was good so I went for it. It turned out that there were many pieces that were cut in such a way that I couldn't use them. Luckily for me, somebody else on Craigslist had the same type of laminate flooring but of different color. I didn't care so I bought it. The end result is that I will have stripes in my poker room.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

 

Special Olympics President

It seems that not only Obama's bowling is like Special Olympics, it's also his presidency.

(Of course, I apologize for this joke even before anybody has read it.)

And people made fun of Bush. Yesterday's rerun of SNL was especially hilarious. It was a day before the Super Bowl. Steve Martin was so happy that the US had an educated and competent president, something he wouldn't have believed 8 years earlier was ever possible.

That's so funny.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

 
Obama asks "How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney?"

That's strange. I know he's been president for just two months but he must have heard about this:
Predator drone attacks in northwest Pakistan have increased sharply since Bush last year stopped seeking Pakistan's permission. Obama may keep pace as officials speak of confusion in Al Qaeda ranks.

Our Predators deliver ultimate justice to those terrorists and Obama thinks this is not good enough.

I think he knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that one attack and he will never implement his socialistic policies. So he will do anything to protect the country and he knows that Bush's methods worked so he will use them and then some. He only has to pretend he disagrees with Bush to appease his most rabid supporters.

Friday, March 20, 2009

 

Apparently, when Obama said he would have the most transparent presidency he was talking about his teleprompter.

But he must have meant that the prompter's screens were transparent because it looks like TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) has some ethical problems of its own. He is now black mailing its master.

I think I will buy this sticker.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

 

Mildly stupid Polak watch

I like Krzyzewski. He is a good coach. I really liked what he did at the last Olympics. But. Please don't say all those nice things about Obama if you don't mean them. If you do, you are indeed a stupid Polak. I really hope that you just said what you said about admiring him and so forth because some of the people you have to work with could have been offended if you were honest. Otherwise, you are just another stupid Polak whose parents told you that FDR was a good man and you have to always say good things about Democrats no matter how stupid they are.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

 
When going to or returning from London (can't remember now and don't feel like asking my wife whose memory never fails) in 2002, we were singled out for additional checks at the Minneapolis airport.

A family of 5 at a time, we had to go through what DeFazio, a flaming liberal, thinks is stupid. Well, he is right, but every time one of us conservatives suggest that we do what Israel does, we are called racists.

If it were up to me, all politicians would be forced to be given a taste of their own medicine on the daily basis. Their children should be forced to attend government schools, for example. If we ever switch to government health care, they should be forced to participate in it.

Pelosi is a cat person. That explains a lot. This cheese movie was probably done by her daughter.

Monday, March 16, 2009

 
So whose fault is this?
"As in the United States, angry Poles are blaming the banks for excessive lending. Until banks tightened credit last fall, no-money-down loans valued at 120 percent of collateral were common. Borrowers could sign up for mortgages lasting 75 years."
Does the government have to be responsible for its subjects no matter what they do? It looks like people and banks everywhere were doing the same thing. So how come only "lack" of regulations in the US is being blamed?

I knew this study couldn't have come from Madison. It is still refreshing that any university is willing to publish something that goes against "the consensus."

Commander in Thief?

I blame Bush.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

 
Two days in Seaside away from it all was really relaxing. Watching my son play and win all basketball games was, should I say, even boring. To be fair, his team's bracket also included some teams that shouldn't have been there.

In any case, I still was able to catch a glimpse of liberal stupidity.

This guy says that these companies enjoy tax break but then he says their effective tax rate is still above 20%. Obama wants to kill the breaks so the companies will pay 35%, which is the highest corporate rate in the world (I still have to conform that japan has lowered its.) Corporate tax rates should be close to 0%. I know this will never happen so how about 15%?

Even if we inflated our welfare system to the size of that in Sweden, some people will never be satisfied. This proves that economical inequalities have nothing to do with one's station. It's all about values. Should I say Christian values?

And Obama is hell bent on killing the American values that have been so critical in making the US into what's today. And he will do it following the European model of killing religion through bigger government.

We missed the Saturday mass in Seaside because it was at 4pm instead of the usual 5:30pm. So we had to go to St. Anthony in Forest Grove on Sunday. I don't really like the place. And for good reasons. When it comes time to pray for something, most parishes pray for peace and poor, etc. But at St. Anthony's it's always with a spin. For example, whenever we go there, there is no prayer offered for our troops, which really irks me. But today, there was a prayer for government and corporations to solve/alleviate poverty.

It's one thing when one is delusional/ignorant enough to think that the government actually can do anything about the poverty (short of making it worse) but it's quite another to think that somehow corporations, whose only business should be to make as much money as possible, are somehow responsible too. I thought churches like St. Anthony should take upon themselves to help the poor instead of convincing their members to vote for whoever will steal more from corporations through higher taxes. Or did they mean that corporations solve poverty by hiring more people?

Thursday, March 12, 2009

 
I thought I had the last word on the FDR controversy. But, of course, some deadenders will never let it go. Instead of quoting another honest economist or a sane professor, I decided to use the words of somebody responsible for implementing FDR's policies to end this discussion once and for all.

This is what the treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, told the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939:

We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I want to see the country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot.
Enough said.

Have you heard about Abramoff and his connections to Republicans? Of course you have. Have you heard about Madoff? Of course you have. But have you heard about Madoff's connections to Democrats? No? Why, that's strange.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

 
How could have a refugee from a socialist country voted for Obama? Not only that. He says he did it because he wanted somebody to "fix" our energy and environmental problems. What a shame!

Another good analysis of what (and who) caused the current financial crisis.

How about this: I just farted.

This is a quintessential example of what's wrong with government on any level. From local to federal governments are screwing us up. It's time to revolt.

Useful idiots. Including Pelosi, of course.

Monday, March 09, 2009

 
Just to finish our discussion of FDR's policies:
And 1938 and 1939 were also the years when Roosevelt’s advisers began to insist that he give up on his abuse of business and stimuli. As the despairing Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, told the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939:
We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. . . . I want to see the country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after eight [sic] years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . and an enormous debt to boot.
Calls for investigation of the financial meltdown will of course be answered, right? Not as long as it may turn out that Democrats were at fault.

Buffet says the economy has fallen off a cliff. No, Mr. Buffet, the economy was pushed off that cliff with a nice, juicy kick in the ass.

Quote of the day:
"Obama is brazenly doing what the left accused Bush of: cynically using the first major crisis of his presidency as an excuse to pursue his own ideological agenda. But as evidenced by the lack of major terror attacks on U.S. territory since 2001, Bush at least did what was necessary to answer the immediate crisis. Even Paul Krugman acknowledges Obama has fallen short on that score."
James Taranto in BOTW referring to Krugman's column. Krugman, btw, is a dishonest economist and bad professor. I don't know if he is an emeritus.

Think about this:
"In less than 50 days, Obama has spent more than three times the cost of the entire Iraq War so far. This year, he will more than triple the largest deficit of the Bush era."
If Iraq War was so bad, why isn't this?

So somebody tries to defend FDR and gets spanked so badly in the process he should retire (and become emeritus) from revising history and economics.

Americans' short attention span that was used so effectively by the media against Bush will sink Obama. Americans don't have the same patience that allowed FDR to go through his 3 terms screwing up the economy left and right. No matter how the media will try to cover for Obama, Americans will not care.

So the first 25 jobs created/saved are government jobs and we should be happy, right? At least these guys are police officers as opposed to pencil pushers but show me 25 private-sector jobs and I will be impressed.

Obama, you are a thief. You meant to kill the market. You want to kill our spirits. You want us to become slaves. How ironic!
"The larger point is that economies don't spiral down forever without a reason and without policy encouragement. What's worrying about the plunge in equities since January 2, and especially in the last week since Mr. Obama released his radical budget, is that it has come amid the unveiling of the President's policy agenda. Equity prices have reacted to those proposals by signaling that they expect a much deeper and longer recession.

The optimistic message in Mr. Cogan's comparisons is that recessions eventually end. How long they last, and how severe they get, depends in part on the choices our leaders make. The choices that Mr. Obama and Congress are making so far are not contributing to confidence, much less to recovery."
An honest economist and, yes, even a professor, repeats almost word by word what I said in my column. He just does it so much better. You know, he is a real professor.

Democrats will invent facts if they have to just to nationalize as much of the private sector as possible.

If only Barney Frank allowed for an honest investigation instead of what will for sure be grandstanding. This story is so heartbreaking I'm lost for words. Notwithstanding the terrible mistakes, the investigation should teach the rest of the government and especially our Democrat Congress what honesty looks like.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

 

Can you imagine?

From WSJ:

"Then again, we are relearning that the "Imperial Presidency" is only imperial when the President is a Republican. Democrats who spent years denouncing George Bush for "spying on Americans" and "illegal wiretaps" are now conspicuously silent."

FDR carpet-bombed Dresden. But it was OK. Bush, as hard as he tried not, kills a few civilians in Iraq, he is a criminal. Obama is now killing civilians in Afghanistan and nobody cares.

It is a fact that so called Progressives take their roots in the fascist movements in Italy and similar government controls in the Soviet Union. There is a lot to be afraid of when Democrats are in power.

 

Rush

Yes, I do listen to Rush. Does it make me a right-wing extremist? Does listening to Jeremiah Wright for 20 years every Sunday make you an America-hating nut?

 

F*&%$ DST!



One reason to get rid of the Daylight Saving Time is that is seems nobody can spell it right. It is not Daylight Savings Time!!! It is Daylight Saving Time. It's not Time of Daylight Savings. Instead, it is Time that Saves Daylight. Get it?!?!?

And it's everywhere. On the radio, on the TV, even on official announcement at my job. It seems it is somebody's job to inform me that I will be coming to work on Monday one hour earlier and he can't even get it right why!

Even Yahoo! can't get it right and I've been writing them for 2 years now about the correct spelling.

 

Quote of the day

From AP of all sources:

"Although the administration likes to say it "inherited" the recession and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on Obama's still-young watch."

 

Can you imagine?


Yes, can you imagine if the secretary of state under the Bush administration went to Russia with a stupid reset-our-relationship button even if the spelling was correct. Can you imagine if the spelling or meaning was not correct? We would have weeks of media orgy deriding the stupid Bush. But because it was Clinton and Obama, well, that's just understandable.

And what's with the props? Can't you just say (however wrong it would be to say so) "We are sorry for the last 8 years of that moron Bush. Now, we will give you everything you want. In fact, we would also like to apologize for that moron Reagan for having exposed you for the evil empire you are."


Wednesday, March 04, 2009

 

I HOPE his CHANGE fails!

Quote of the day:
"Only a big-government man would think of calling a trillion-dollar tax increase a spending cut or "saving." Technically, of course, it is true. A trillion-dollar tax increase would reduce spending by $1 trillion for those private citizens who were taxed. And from the perspective of the federal government, a trillion dollars taxed is a trillion dollars saved from the greed of the taxpayers who produced the wealth and might well want to spend or invest it in nongovernmental activities."
Even Poland doesn't get it. You can't interfere with free markets.

Speaking of Poland, Obama is selling it to Russia like FDR sold it to the USSR. And the most humiliating part (for the US, of course; I don't think Obama would know what 'humilitaing' means) is that Russians are laughing at him. So Poland has enough guts (no wonder, the Poles learn from history) to allow and invite the US to protect Europe with the anti-missile shield, and Obama is trying to negotiate with the enemy. I'm not saying this as a ex-Pole, I'm saying this as an American: shame on you President Obama. You don't appreciate your true friends. Why is it that the left has this weird attitude when it comes to all kinds of thugs?

While most energy companies make money this cold (thanks to the global warming) winter, the Polish Natural gas monopoly lost money. I like the title of this piece. Why is anybody surprised? It's a freaking monopoly!!!

It is now officially Obama's economy.
"The Democrats who now run Washington don't want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it's also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length -- and average job loss -- of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up -- unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery."

Obama wants to throw these kids out of their school. If they go to public schools, the chances that they will drop out will increase. It's for the childrenteachers unions!

More supporting material for who caused the recession:

In part, the aggressive tactics of mortgage lenders have been made possible by the automated underwriting systems developed in recent years by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). These two government-created companies buy 70% of new mortgages in the U.S. and repackage them as mortgage-backed securities, which they then sell to investors.
The new underwriting systems being used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are analogous to the credit-scoring systems used by banks, allow for higher loan-to-income ratios than in the past to encourage home buying. That's good for borrowers, but the relaxed ratios could pose serious problems in the future. For one, there is already evidence that defaults are rising, particularly at the low end of the market, where there is a concentration of homeowners who might not have owned houses without the mortgage boom. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which makes low-income loans, saw mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures jump to 0.71% of its portfolio in the middle of last year. "That number has been hanging around 0.59% for years," says Wharton's Wachter, who used to work at the Office of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), which collects these statistics. That may not sound like much of a jump, but it amounts to about a $600 million increase in delinquencies.
For Fannie Mae (FNM ) and Freddie Mac (FRE ), which only began expanding into subprime mortgages two years ago, deteriorating credit quality may be a new and unpleasant experience. Since they control such a big chunk of the market, if their portfolios are perceived to be more vulnerable to credit issues, that could boost mortgage rates across the country.
Moreover, investors in mortgage-backed securities have always assumed that the two mortgage companies are backed by an implicit government guarantee that investors would be bailed out in the event of big mortgage defaults. But some Republicans in Congress have recently challenged these guarantees. If investors begin to worry that these guarantees won't be upheld, that could trigger a quick rise in mortgage rates, which would undercut the housing market.
Of course, the pessimists could be wrong, and the housing market could continue to sail upward. But remember that in the late 1990s, few people expected technology stocks to go bust. Now, it's housing that is supposed to be a no-lose proposition. As the old saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
The whole story from the beginning to the end here.

Too much to list from this but it is sooooo good and true, of course. The best parts:
The cost of our health care is soaring because, to be frank, that health care is usually very good, and it does things routinely that almost no one else in the world contemplates — such as providing 83-year-olds with heart-valve replacements, 78-year-olds with hip and knee replacements, and those who drink, smoke, and are chronically obese with drugs and weekly doctor visits.
[...]
What could be done? President Obama could try some honesty. Thus he might say, “We are spending hundreds of billions to keep us healthy, vital, and alive in ways unimaginable a few years ago. To keep our part of the bargain, we must then encourage the aging to remain active and working — and delay retirement. If we are living to 80 rather than 65, then surely we can start receiving Social Security benefits at 67 rather than at 62. What we save in postponed payouts can go to the greater cost of keeping us alive to 80.”
[...]
President Obama apparently cannot say, “Americans — each time you have a child out of wedlock, each time you take an illicit drug, each time you break the law or go to jail, each time you romanticize brutality rather than honor scholarship, each time you allege the racism of the others rather than look into your own soul, you do your own small part in ensuring that we might not educate your child as we should — no matter how many thousands of dollars we lavish upon him.”
[...]
All government officials talk of spending wisely, but they never tell us the true extent of their financial malfeasance. Imagine if last week, in his address to Congress, President Obama had said something like the following: “We must cut spending, since the borrowed money must come from somewhere. Either we print more paper dollars, and eventually ruin the value of our currency in the manner now common in Zimbabwe or Argentina; or we continue to borrow from the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans, and therefore mortgage both our honor and our autonomy; or, in the manner of War Bonds during the Second World War, we will have to ask you all to forgo stocks, 401(k)s, and real-estate investments, and instead each month, as part of your patriotic duty, buy U.S. government savings bonds that garner almost no interest, to subsidize our nation’s lavish borrowing and spending.”
[...]
For the last 20 years, all our presidents have talked much about health care, education, and spending, while saying little. Either they were not honest enough to tell us the truth — or they were convinced that, like children, we simply couldn’t handle it if they did.


Monday, March 02, 2009

 

Happy Pulaski Day!

"I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it."

Kazimierz (Casimir) Pulaski wrote these words to George Washington whose life Pulaski saved in the Battle of Brandywine. Pulaski died from wounds received at the siege of Savannah. Pulaski received 7th honorary US citizenship in 2007.

Professor Dondero would benefit from reading and understanding this simple lesson in free markets, and how constant worrying about the bottom 10% ruins free markets and prosperity for the rest of us.
"We have got to get this right, not only for our own future but for all humanity. The free market is history’s greatest invention, and destroying it now would be history’s biggest mistake – perhaps even its greatest crime."
Taxes in Oregon should be lowered not raised. But if taxes in Oregon are to go up, this is the best way. Poor and illegal will finally pay something. Of course, we will pay more but at least everybody will have some skin in the game of keeping taxes low.

I was against Obama's plan to rescue home owners who can't pay their mortgages and/or who are underwater because they owe more on their houses than what they are worth. I was against it on principle. So I didn't even have to consider how unfair this plan was. WSJ makes this excellent point today:
"At the height of the housing boom, Americans were pulling $300 billion each year out of their home equity, according to research by James Kennedy of the Federal Reserve. Since 2005, cash-out refinancings have represented a third of all mortgage originations in the United States. Rod Dubitsky of Credit Suisse estimates that close to half of subprime mortgages were cash-out refis. Spending the winnings from the rise in home prices meant that borrowers were converting to more risky mortgages, typically with higher monthly payments. According to Freddie Mac, most of its refinancings have resulted in larger loan amounts in every quarter since the middle of 2004."

"Is taking on more debt a sign of responsibility? The Obama plan focuses on subsidizing borrowers to reduce their debt-to-income ratio, but taxpayers might be more interested in another statistic. Call it the flat-screen-to-kidney-transplant ratio. Can the Administration report how many of the people due to receive tax dollars spent home equity on plasma TVs? When this figure is divided by the number who spent the money on medical care, then Mr. Obama can make his case on the facts."
What if the owner refinanced to get cash out and spent on luxuries that he couldn't have possibly afford otherwise? Why do we now have to pay for those luxuries? It's one thing for Obama to ask me to pay higher taxes for somebody's unemployment payments but it is quite another to ask me to pay for somebody's trip to Paris (especially Paris) while I was paying my mortgage off (including the 13th-month payment) without ever taking a cent out of my house.

I own two cars: 1997 w/ 170k and 2002 w/ 85k. Both paid off. WE don't have cable. We have 768kbps broadband. Our two cell phones are pay-as-you-go and we don't "go" that much; they are meant to be used in emergencies and to manage a family of 6 (i.e., son A's game went into overtime so you take daughter B to that game instead.)

I spend a lot of money on all kinds of insurance policies so when something bad happens I don't have to ask for help. I save at least 15% every year so I don't have to rely on SS. Of course, with his fantastic performance since the inauguration, Obama took care of my 401(k) so maybe I will have to cash that SS check. Obama (like many Democrats before him) are standing fairness and responsibility on its head. He is punishing me for my good behavior.

"There is a moral hazard in rewarding bad decisions. But it's worse than that: The White House plan contains penalties for everyone else. The mortgage "cramdown," allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce the amount owed, can only make investors less willing to lend to future homebuyers."
Are they really so clueless? When I hear somebody say "I hate America!" I know we are doing something right.

"Mark this down as the first of what we expect will be many such revelations for Obama Administration diplomats. Their animating conceit is that the world dislikes America merely because the Bush Administration wasn't solicitous enough of world opinion. But Durban II shows that many countries hate us merely for who we are and what we stand for."
How true, how true.

"I’ve found that the machine-gun-objection approach is common among many skeptics and liberals. They throw objection after objection at believers and conservatives but never pause long enough to listen to the answers. It doesn’t matter that you’ve just answered their question with an undeniable fact—they’ve already left that topic and are rattling off another objection on another topic as if you hadn’t said a word. They don’t really seem interested in finding answers but in finding reasons to make themselves feel better about what they want to believe."
"After all, a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs."
But it could be even worse. When they do listen to your arguments, especially when you use their own words, they deny everything. Now they say, that they predicted this cooling period and that it is indeed proof that global warming is happening. 1984 anyone?

Please forward this to as many people as possible; especially Democrats who can still be saved.
"One day, scientists will discover the cure for cancer. The world will erupt in joyous celebration – and rightly so. Cancer is a horrible disease that each year destroys the lives of millions of people, and finding a cure will be recognized as one of history’s greatest achievements.

There’s another disease that destroys vastly more lives each year than cancer. And we’ve found the cure for it – but no one is celebrating. Indeed, hardly anyone seems even to have noticed that we’ve already figured out how to rid the world of its most destructive scourge.

This disease is poverty. And the cure for poverty is the free market. That’s because the free market is the only environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish. And it’s the entrepreneurs – and only the entrepreneurs -- who create the jobs that lift us all out of poverty."

Sunday, March 01, 2009

 

Now that we are going into Great Depression ver. 2.0 thanks to our "savior" Obama, I thought it would be useful for my eldest daughter to learn some real (i.e, useful, unlike Woman's Studies, for example) skills. College is so overrated.

 


One more day, one more step closer. The tree house has a door. No glass yet in windows or the door because I'm debating what the safest way to install real glass in a structure so high off the ground and in the middle of my boys' ball play area is. I still would prefer to install real glass as I have many pieces from various projects and, you know, I'd like to recycle (wink, wink.) But I think I will have to install some kind of a net or bars so when a ball hits the glass it doesn't break. I'm concerned that the falling pieces could do a lot of damage to anybody below; especially somebody looking up to see what just happened.

 
After his congressional address a few days ago, I said that Obama lies. To be clear, let me just say that he does it very cleverly. He, as most Democrats, redefines many words in the English language to give them new meanings to fool Americans into thinking he is doing the exact opposite of what he really does.

In this column, Kimberly Strassel list the most outrageous examples of the new-speak. It reminds me of how leftists in the socialist Poland used to speak to us: "Whom are you going to believe? Us who really have good intentions or your pathetic lives? And remember, it's somebody else's fault."

 
I made a point in my last column that Jimmy Carter was probably the worst American president. It was only a slight exaggeration. There may have been one or two who may have been worse; especially the one who got pneumonia while taking his inaugural address without a coat and died a month or so later. I also said in this letter to the editor that Bush would be eventually recognized as a great president.

This piece in WSJ provides a sane analysis of how Bush (and implicitly Carter) will be regarded by future generations.
Worse than Jimmy Carter, the self- proclaimed Washington "outsider" who presided over the most horrendous stagflation in our history? As his poll numbers sank, Mr. Carter had the temerity to lecture citizens on their "crisis of spirit." His approval rating had plummeted to 22% when Ronald Reagan defeated him.
The author of the piece, Thomas Fleming, also suggests that FDR will eventually be judged as an undemocratic bully he was.
Is Mr. Bush worse than Roosevelt in his second term? Re-elected by a massive majority, FDR wanted to pack the Supreme Court with Democrats. Congress, dominated by members of his own party, wasted a year wrangling over the bill and ultimately rejected it. Meanwhile, FDR's intemperate remarks about greedy businessmen wrecked confidence and triggered a semireplay of the Great Depression in 1937. The Republicans made massive gains in the 1938 midterm elections. FDR was rescued from an exit even more humiliating than Jefferson's by World War II, which he used as an excuse to run for a third term.

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