What a nightmare. Having to wet nurse Barry 24/7. Oh for the days of cigar tricks and bimbo eruptions.

I mean..by comparison even JIMMY CARTER took his job more seriously.

You know what? I always considered it unlikely that Hillary might run against Obama in 2012. But I have to say you guys might be right about this.

Of course she says in the interview that she wouldn't run - but every single candidate always says that, and then a lot of them "change their mind" after forming exploratory committees.

Interested.

Just maybe the head honchos of the DNC have lost their admiration for The One and are prepping for his replacement in 2012. Can see the banner now "Giving the Party a Choice!".

Teddy ran for nomination against Carter with the Party's blessing. Looks like history does repeat itself.

I voted for Obama in the Democratic primary in 2008. To be blunt, I think I made a mistake.

I've been saying it's Amateur Night at the White House since the first day The Kenyan Community Organizer got in there.

It continues....

Meanwhile, deep within his Fortress of Platitude, Captain Obvious broods and soliloquizes, "Damn, Obama likes to 'be' President, but he sure as s*** doesn't like to 'do' President, does he?"

This report may or may not be true, but it's certainly plausible.

I was heartened when she took the SecState job, because it meant that the Clintons - no amateur politicians they - had taken Barry's measure, and made him a one-term wonder.

Taking SecState a) gave her higher profile than Senator, b) buffed up her resume with nominal foreign policy experience, c) earned her Dem Party brownie points for loyalty, and d) when Barry screwed the pooch, positioned her to resign on a matter of principle - and make a huge splash in the process.

Btw, I just gave my first-ever + votes for jim x and James H, with whom for once I totally agree. Truly these are the End Times.

When Hillary Clinton is your reality check then you've already become a third-world nation.

Ha Ha Ha Ha hA

[thinking of poor Lee Lee's inability to comment here at this momentous time in Democratic history]

Back when she took the Secretary of State job, the hubby and I predicted that as the 2012 elections approached:
1) Hillary would resign over something and proclaim she could no longer tolerate the way Barry's administration was handling things.
2) She will "reluctantly" run in 2012 for the "good of the country".
3) This summer the first of the items in Pannetta's goody bag (which he has put together on 0 through late night forays into the CIAs files) will hit the fan.

Popcorn anyone?

Last invasion I participated in - at D minus 1, our commanders read to us our Commander-In-Chief's Attack Order - everyone down to the lowest ranking Private knew exactly what was expected of us and what was fixing to happen. I heard later, our President also went on national television back in the United States, to keep our home citizenry advised as well.

I consider it a very very bad sign that we are not hearing anything similar from our current Commander-in-Chief.

Semper Fidelis-

I mean..by comparison even JIMMY CARTER took his job more seriously.

He took it seriously, all right, Ryan - I never had any doubt of that. His decisions though, I think, were tainted by a great fear of doing something wrong - he was hesitant a lot of the time, and I think that was his main consideration.

He wasn't really ready for the job - but he did well enough. (He wasn't GOOD in my estimation, but he beats the livin' snot out the current occupant.)

James H -

"I voted for Obama in the Democratic primary in 2008. To be blunt, I think I made a mistake."

Don't feel bad. I voted for Carter. Was in the AF at the time, figured an ex-nuke squid wouldn't be too bad...

Well, we live and learn, don't we?

Jim X -

I wouldn't be at all surprised if she looks at the possibility, looks at the pile of dog squeezings she's going to inherit and have to try to fix, and goes "You know, I think the Chinese phrase 'No fuki wai' pretty much covers it."

She might be power hungry - but she also wants something that functions that'll GIVE her that power, and I don't think Obama's going to be leaving all that much behind but a staggering debt that's going to shape government for decades to come.

What to say? I saw the interview and had the thought that Barry jut got both legs cut off. Then I thought some more and watched the media try to carry the Prez water for him and then I thought "People get exactly the government they deserve." Then I thought "Mid 70's, no grandchildren, great life, lots of friends, Who Cares?"

Fix it Boomers, It was all your pretensions that broke it.

JLaw:

A Carter vote? Guess you do have a left side after all. I decided not to vote for Hillary in part because I object to dynastic politics. We fought a war over that sort of thing, after all. (And for the record, no, I have never voted for a Kennedy).

But the last couple years under Obama ... I still think he's a smart man, but I don't think he's got the political chops to make things happen in Washington. Obama likes to sit above it all, but sometimes part of being president is to get down in the trenches in Congress. He hasn't done a very good job of that.

During the HCR debates last year, a columnist (can't remember which one) contrasted LBJ's handling of an important bill vs. Obama's HCR handling. LBJ, according to this columnist, decided he didn't give a damn about party on the issue. He ended up personally working the phones to persuade any legislator who was persuadable, offering everything from the usual Washington candy (a photo with the president for your wall!!) to helping a particular legislator campaign or raise money. LBJ did this because he believed the bill was mportant. I tmay have been civil rights ... don't remember.

But the lesson is pertinent. If a president really wants a bill passed, he should press the flesh and do everything he can to bring legislators to his side. If he doesn't ... then he doesn't really believe in his bill, does he?

I mean..by comparison even JIMMY CARTER took his job more seriously.

He took it seriously, all right, Ryan - I never had any doubt of that. His decisions though, I think, were tainted by a great fear of doing something wrong - he was hesitant a lot of the time, and I think that was his main consideration.

Agreed. Jimmy was awful but never once did I get the idea that he didn't care, wasn't trying, or wasting his time on frivolous activities. He never lacked for sincerity or earnestness. He clearly understood that he was the leader of the free world and that placed a tremendous burden of responsibility on him. He reacted very poorly and was wrong almost continually but he did the job. Even I had to respect the effort he put into it, even if the results were borderline catastrophic.

Obama has been a completely empty suit and seems to go out of his way to disavow anything resembling responsibility, from the very start. That's pretty consistent with his past -never having a real job and the few tasks he has taken on have been essentially taking shots at other people's efforts, not taking on a task and being responsible for the end results. Pathetic.

James H -

"Guess you do have a left side after all."

I learned from THAT not to believe a politician. To look at what they've done, not what they say they're going to do.

As far as Obama being smart... one of my favorite actresses is Amanda Tapping, who plays Col. Samantha Carter in the Stargate series. Her role is pretty much the scientific savant, intelligent and capable and competent and that she's blond and VERY good looking (in my opinion, your mileage may vary) made for a very potent combination. Drool city, you know?

And then... one time getting the DVDs from Netflix I watched some of the extra material. She's a very good actress - but without the script and staging she comes across as pretty dull and, well, normal. When she's on camera in persona? Wow. Not? Eh.

Obama - without the staging and the script - just doesn't come across as smart to me. I keep hearing he's ferociously intelligent - but when he's speaking off the cuff I'm not getting an impression of someone smart - I hear an actor trying desperately to improvise in a role he knows he can't handle.

And frankly, that's the way he's been 'acting' for the last couple of years. He'll propose things with no thought at all of what'll come of them down the line. (Cash4Clunkers being an excellent example.)

Plus - we still haven't seen his college transcripts. So I'm not convinced that he's as smart as he's portrayed. He can ACT smart... but is he?

Carter was sincere enough, but completely wrong about foreign policy - most particularly about the motivations and intentions of known and potential adversaries. In domestic policy, he was mistaken and inept - in large part because the DC Establishment rejected his reasonable ideas out of hand, and his only intelligent adviser, Bert Lance, was hounded from office on trumped-up charges.

Carter has consistently moved ever farther to the radical left since leaving office, to the point where he is still sincere but totally evil now.

Obama is totally incompetent, cares only for himself, and is already evil. The sooner he leaves office, the better for America.

I do suspect he will not run again, figuring he can make millions from the radical left worldwide with speeches and books, and not have the nagging responsibilities interfering with his mirror time and golf outings.

I still think he's a smart man

I keep hearing this about Obama from lefties, and there's, like, zero evidence for this. I honestly do not know where this comes from. What has he ever done? What were his grades in school? What papers has he written?

It's true that Obama graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law, but again, what did he do? What were his grades, and what did he do to earn them? We don't know any of these things and our adulatory media haven't yet bestirred themselves to find out.

Basically, the only "evidence" I've seen for Obama's intelligence is testimony from other liberals saying how he intelligent he is (which they never tell you what they're basing it on). And that's about it. But all that means is that Obama is very good at getting others to think well of him.

I didn't much care for Bill Clinton, but he at least was a Rhodes Scholar, and that is an actual accomplishment. And which puts him one up on Obama.

You know what? I always considered it unlikely that Hillary might run against Obama in 2012. But I have to say you guys might be right about this.

The thing is, she can't win. So long as Obama's decided to run for reelection, he's going to have the incumbent's advantage, already difficult to beat. If Clinton were to run against him, she'd be fighting an uphill battle as the black vote would go to Obama. If she were to beat the odds and take the nomination, many black people (who are the only group still showing 90%+ approval ratings for Obama) would very likely feel angry and betrayed, and many would not vote for her, dooming her in the general election.

Obama essentially marginalized HRC by making her SoS. Her mistake was accepting the position. The Libyan situation, on top of all the other foreign policy gaffes, provides her with the perfect circumstances to leave her position and look good doing it.

As for Obama being smart, I'll offer again a quote from Richard Epstein, colleague of Barack Obama at the University of Chicago Law School....

I like Obama but I reject the suggestion that he is an intellectual. He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual."

I, too, voted for President Obama in the Democratic primary over Sec. Clinton because I knew that Clinton would be more capable. If you going to elect a socialist -- and it was clear that the Democrats were going to win the election hands down no matter who they nominated -- then by all means elect an inexperienced political hack with no management experience who is afraid of making decisions.

And Obama has exceeded my expectations in every category! In fact, the one thing that I didn't expect is that once he got to the top and realized there is no bigger job he can get, then he just quit. What I failed to realize is how lazy he is. The country has big problems, and we don't even have a care-taker President. He likes to throw parties, ride around in Air Force One, and play golf.

Will Hillary run in 2012? I hope not. She's not lazy.

--------

RE: James H: "I still think he's a smart man"
A lot of people make the mistake of voting for people because they appear to be smart -- or at least smarter than their opponent. This is a huge mistake. First of all, lots of people are smart and lazy, and that doesn't mean they will get anything done. Others appear to be book smart, but lack the practical skills to get the job done. And worst of all, many narcissists and totally corrupt individuals are very smart, but they don't care about ordinary people or even the country. They make terrible leaders because they are in it for themselves, and their agenda is not anyone else's agenda. Obama is an example of all three.

I agree on the comment about Obama not being a smart man. Play back the tapes and you will find people saying that but no examples given. He had no record. None that he could say "this is my belief". I knew the fix was in. I never really had an opinion of Oprah one way or the other, but now I know she threw him the election.

I hire employees at times, and if I had an executive position open and I reviewed Obama's resume, I wouldn't even give it a thought. I was absolutely amazed how the country fell for the bullshit. Of course, the GOP had McCain, so it was a lose lose. 2012 will be much differnt. Now Obama has a record and that is a record of "lack of leadership" and "inability to lead" unless it concerns black issues then he is right on it. See black professors and Dayton Ohio. ww

Give me a break! When the 3:00 am call came Hillary was found hiding under the covers with Obama. It takes more than one progressive to destroy a country!

"Frankly, we are just completely puzzled," one of the diplomats told Foreign Policy magazine. "We are wondering if this is a priority for the United States."

What's to be puzzled about? Just shows you that these people think about stuff too much. The answer is 'no'. They should know that by now - hell, most of us knew it 2+ years ago. If it's not income redistribution or setting back race relations it's not a priority.

In fact, the one thing that I didn't expect is that once he got to the top and realized there is no bigger job he can get, then he just quit.

He's used every job he's had as a springboard to a higher office. Which is why I think we should unilaterally set up a "World Emperor" palace in the South Pacific. Johnston Atoll, ya'll, would be the perfect place. Get Disney involved, and let them turn the 1.5 sq. mile island into a place an Emperor could dig. Run in fiber, so the 'Emperor' could be involved in running the world by teleconferencing... and have a good studio on the mainland emulate the 'world' he'd be running.

Then appoint Obama as the World Emperor, stuff him out there along with Pelosi, Reid, and Biden. Sure, it'll probably cost a billion or so to get things set up, and maybe a billion a year to maintain the fiction. But that's cheap compared to what he's done so far, and I think he's so dumb that as long as he's treated like an Emperor he'll be happy.

We could even have various new 'heads of state' come to see him, and in his throne room he could wear the trappings of royalty. Large golden crown, ermine robes, servile help - and thn the heads of state could bow to his Imperial Obtuseness...

.... Missus Cli'ton ... would have at least taken the job ... seriously ....

Why not.

For despite that she is the dumbest woman in all of Human history to have ever taken a dump between two shoes, failed the dumbest of America's dumbed-down bar exams, DC's, that her only job was to be a bag-person for a corrupt politician and that she is a predatory, recidivist, treasonous, lying, looting, thieving, mass-murdering, co-serial-rapist, she has indeed taken everything seriously.

Everything that wasn't bolted down, that is.

JLawson says we should set Buraq Hussayn up on Johnson Atol. I reckon Saint Helena's more in scale with his narcissism. And, who knows, he might even come across some left-over cojones in a jar out there somewhere?

God knows he could do with a couple!

The thing is, she can't win. So long as Obama's decided to run for reelection, he's going to have the incumbent's advantage, already difficult to beat.

Agreed. The only way Hillary is likely to run and win would be if she and Obama had already made this deal, back at the end of the primaries, where he would bow out in 2012 and leave the field open to her.

Which I think is unlikely, but possible. I'm keeping my mind open, but it is so rare that a President doesn't even try for a second term. I could be wrong, but I believe the only incumbent to willingly choose not to run for a second term was LBJ. And he was taking a serious beating for the Viet Nam war, which he was eating himself up inside over too.

when it came down to the final three candidates, she was the lesser evil.

Couple comments.

I still think he's a smart man

You were meant to think he was a smart man. It's part of the image that the Party created for him. Think about it. If you wanted to run a candidate to advance your agenda, whom would you choose, and how would you position him? A black man who went to Columbia and Harvard, and was president of the Harvard Law Review? Sure. He's vaccinated against any criticism on intellectual grounds by his race and his resume. But – all he did was get admitted to Columbia and Harvard, and that can be achieved with a little pull and a little affirmative action. We have no idea what he actually did there, but we can presume that if it were good, we'd have heard about it. His transcripts are rated top-secret. You gotta suspect why. All of the indicia of intelligence were conferred upon him by others; there is no objective basis for any great intellect. It's the difference between, say, high jumping and figure skating. The former is utterly objective, being decided by gravity and a bar, and cannot be rigged. The latter, quite the opposite.

I'm not saying Obama is stupid. He's not. I would rate him as at the approximate level of a garden-variety college student, but no more. Evidence? Narrowly circumscribed vocabulary ("corpseman?" "breathalyzer?" please), dearth of factual knowledge ("Austrian?" good one; not realizing the Auschwitz was in Poland? You'd think a President would have some grasp of history and geography), and most of all, the level of abstraction on which he operates (low; I don't count things read off a teleprompter).

Intellectually I would rate him no better than W, and probably somewhat behind him. Bush is/was hopelessly inarticulate, but even speaking extemporaneously addressed such issues as freedom in philosophical terms, and obviously considered history from an overarching perspective. Thus he showed facility and comfort with a higher level of abstraction than Obama has evinced so far.

I didn't much care for Bill Clinton, but he at least was a Rhodes Scholar, and that is an actual accomplishment.

Not really, no. Rhodes scholars are looked down upon at Oxford as rah-rah jocks from the colonies. Brits are mystified by the regard in which we hold Rhodes scholars. Nevertheless, Clinton is clearly a smart man, considerably smarter in my opinion than either W or Obama.

Having said all this, intelligence is not the prime requirement for a President (above a certain threshold level). Leadership is. I've had lots of brilliant colleagues in academia whom I wouldn't allow to run a Burger King because they'd screw it up. Obama is smart enough to be President, but is not noteworthy for intelligence, and what intellect he has, without more, is not enough.

I am not a fan of Hillary and I certainly would never vote for her if she should run again for President. Any women who took the crap she did from her husband has to be either NUTS or likes to be made a fool of. That we do not need in the White House. We already have one fool now.