Maureen Dowd, "Too Many Secrets, Not Enough Service ": The Basis for a "Jackass" Sequel?

Was Julia Pierson forced to leave her position as head of America's Secret Service because she was a woman? Rubbish! She had to go because an intruder with a knife managed to hop the fence protecting the White House and make it all the way into the East Room. And then there was also that "minor" matter involving Obama's elevator ride with a security contractor with a concealed pistol, who had three convictions for assault and battery. Everyone makes mistakes? Sure, but Pierson failed to fess up to the president in timely fashion concerning what happened when he visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. In short, there was no way in hell she could continue on the job.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Too Many Secrets, Not Enough Service," subtitled "Julia Pierson and the Glass Ceiling," Maureen Dowd tackles the issue of whether gender had anything to do with Pierson's departure. Dowd acknowledges:

"It is true that women often get top jobs, like evening news anchor or Hollywood studio chief, after the institutions have lost their luster. But, in Pierson’s case, she earned her abrupt exit fair and square. It’s no blot on the copybook of women. She withheld crucial information and helped paper over fiascos at an agency where mismanagement and denial put the president’s life (and his family’s lives) in jeopardy."

Hey, Maureen, just as an aside: What about Barbara Walters, who co-anchored ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner and co-hosted The View until her retirement in May of this year?

But I am drifting off topic. Instead of simply asking whether poor Julia was forced to resign because she was a woman, maybe Dowd should be asking whether Kathleen Sebelius also ultimately needed to leave Health and Human Services because of her gender. Let's think on that for a minute. Better still, let's think on that for half a second. The reality was that Kathleen was also frightfully incompetent and had to go.

But wait! Wasn't Attorney General Eric Holder a disaster? After all, as observed in a Washington Times article entitled "Holder heading out, but contempt lives on" by Stephen Dinan, he is "the first sitting Cabinet official ever to face a contempt citation from Congress," owing to his "delay in turning over documents related to the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation." Why wasn't Holder canned by Obama? I suppose because his actions merely threatened the fabric of America's constitutional democracy, but not the safety of the First Family.

Secretary of State John Kerry? His attempt to compel Israel to accept the mediation of Turkey and Qatar involving the recent Gaza conflict was embarrassing. Then, too, there was his more recent nonsensical claim that the United States is not at war with ISIS, which he needed to walk back. However, you can't fire someone for stupidity, particularly if you were responsible for hiring him.

And what about Secretary of Defense Chuck "Chowderhead" Hagel, who, during a June 2013 speech at the University of Nebraska, asked an Indian man in the audience, "You're not a member of the Taliban, are you?" Why didn't Hagel get the boot? Actually, the answer is quite simple. You've heard of the policy "no boots on the ground"? Well, there is also an unwritten Obama administration policy "no boots in the arse," particularly if a firing would outrage armies of mentally challenged persons throughout the United States. This could swing America's midterm elections in November!

But heck, if we're going to hold Holder, Kerry and Hagel to account, what about Obama himself, who ran off to a Martha's Vineyard golf course within 20 minutes of delivering a speech deploring James Foley's horrifying death?  Let's also not forget how he claimed to learn of the Veterans Administration, IRS, and Fast and Furious scandals by way of news reports.

Bottom line: The antics of the Obama administration could easily provide the basis for a new "Yes Minister" series. That, or a sequel to "Jackass." To get axed by Obama, you really need to do something special, i.e. exhibit gross incompetence as opposed to the run-of-the-mill variety that has characterized his tenure. Pierson managed to do just that.

David Brooks, "The Character Factory": All That's Needed Is Willy Wonka

After writing a masterful opinion piece on Tuesday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/david-brooks-no-war-is-island-obama.html), David Brooks is back to writing drivel. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Character Factory" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/opinion/david-brooks-the-character-factory.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), Brooks delves upon the issue of building "character." Brooks would have us know:

"Nearly every parent on earth operates on the assumption that character matters a lot to the life outcomes of their children. Nearly every government antipoverty program operates on the assumption that it doesn’t.

. . . .

Social research over the last decade or so has reinforced the point that would have been self-evident in any other era — that if you can’t help people become more resilient, conscientious or prudent, then all the cash transfers in the world will not produce permanent benefits."

Brooks concludes:

"Character development is an idiosyncratic, mysterious process. But if families, communities and the government can envelop lives with attachments and institutions, then that might reduce the alienation and distrust that retards mobility and ruins dreams."

Fascinating! With some 50 million Americans on food stamps, with almost half of first babies in the US born to unwed mothers, and with cheap heroin available in the nation's suburban schools, the US government should focus on building the character of disadvantaged youths.

Query: After Congress legislates the qualities of this elixir, which agency of America's bankrupt government ($17.6 trillion of national debt, growing by the second) is going to administer this program? Perhaps Kathleen Sebelius might be willing to take a stab at managing this "thing." Or maybe Obama should seek out Willy Wonka.

Am I only imagining things, or is David Brooks beginning to sound like Thomas Friedman?

Dana Milbank, "Obama is President Passive over the Veterans Affairs scandal": Obama Is "President Passive" . . . Period

"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"

- Howard Beale, "Network" (1976)

Are you "mad as hell"? Well, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says President Obama is "madder than hell," but he sure as hell doesn't appear that way. Actually, it seems that the lives of veterans don't have value for the Obama administration.

Just another "political football" or "bogus" scandal? I don't think so.

In his latest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama is President Passive over the Veterans Affairs scandal" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-is-president-passive-over-the-veterans-administration/2014/05/21/4cc2d534-e12f-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html?hpid=z2), Dana Milbank observes:

"Over the weekend, the president’s chief of staff assured the public that Obama was 'madder than hell' about what happened at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but in person Obama didn’t seem very angry. Like VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama wasn’t entirely convinced something bad had happened.

'If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable,' he said. 'If there is misconduct, it will be punished.'

. . . .

But there are no 'ifs' about it: Numerous inquiries and leaked memos over several years point to “gaming strategies” employed at VA facilities to make wait times for medical appointments seem shorter — and these clearly aren’t limited to those reported in Phoenix; Albuquerque; Fort Collins, Colo.; and elsewhere. Lawmakers in both parties have spoken of a systemic problem at the agency, and the American Legion, citing 'poor oversight,' has called for Shinseki’s resignation — the first time it has made such a gesture in more than 70 years."

Wow, Milbank is finally waking up to the fact that Obama is a crafty orator, but an incompetent administrator?

Why does he think that the president should behave differently with respect to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki than with former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius?

But more to the point, has the American people finally woken up to the fact that the emperor has no clothes?

Maybe, just maybe, we will find out in November.

Gail Collins, "And the Race Is Off": Revisiting "The Wizard of Oz"

Dorothy Gale: How do you talk if you don't have a brain?

Scarecrow: Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don't they?

- "Wizard of Oz" (1939)

Just how daft is Gail Collins?

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "And the Race Is Off" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/opinion/collins-and-the-race-is-off.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), Gail Collins wonders how much "fun" (her word) it would have been if Kathleen Sebelius has decided to run for senator in Kansas. The rationale underlying her opinion is that incumbent Senator Pat Roberts's "voting address is actually a house on a country club golf course that belongs to two longtime supporters" and that Roberts has joked that he has "full access to the recliner."

This is almost as funny as how Hillary Clinton established residency in order to run for the Senate from New York (see: http://nypost.com/2000/01/05/hillarys-move-in-day-is-just-crate/).

But most remarkable is Collins's declaration (my emphasis in red):

"But about Kathleen Sebelius. Running a hopeless race for the Senate would be better than, say, spending the next year working on a memoir entitled 'It Wasn’t Really My Fault.' And we have to keep stressing that, despite its awful start, the Affordable Care Act is working out fine."

Excuse me but who the hell is this "we"?

Obamacare is "working out fine"? Oh really? Have a look at Michael Gerson's recent Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obamacare has spawned a misguided debate" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-obamacare-has-spawned-a-misguided-debate/2014/04/07/f51d8528-be82-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html?hpid=z2). Gerson writes:

"[N]ever mind that the actual goal was not 7 million exchange sign-ups; it was health insurance enrollments, which are likely to be significantly fewer. And never mind that the number of the previously uninsured seems a remarkably small portion of these sign-ups — well under half. (Health wonk Bob Laszewski estimates that only about 27 percent of Americans eligible for Obamacare subsidies have enrolled in the system.) And never mind that, even including the Medicaid expansion, the most optimistic estimates of reductions in the number of the uninsured are much less than what the Congressional Budget Office projected before the rollout began. And never mind that all these decreases in the uninsured seem small in comparison to the amount of money spent, displacement caused and political capital expended.

And never mind that the proportion of younger and healthier enrollees to those with preexisting conditions is still being determined and that many analysts expect double-digit insurance premium increases in many state exchanges (particularly those with limited insurance competition). And never mind that health-care cost inflation has suddenly spiked to a 10-year high."

You want some "fun"? Have a gander at the following video featuring Dr. Barbara Bellar:



But the real "fun" has yet to come. As observed by Jonathan Tobin in a Commentary opinion piece entitled "Obama’s Boasts Won’t End OCare Debate" (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/04/17/obamas-boasts-wont-end-obamacare-debate/):

"But the assumption that the government’s successful efforts to pressure or persuade several million people to sign up for ObamaCare means that it is 'working' is completely unwarranted. It’s not just that the figures put forward by the administration are unreliable for a number of reasons. Even if we assumed that there really were eight million ObamaCare policyholders, the real test of this law’s viability and its ability to endure has yet to come. Not until we see just how many of those signed up are young and healthy enough to help pay for the vast number of sick and elderly covered by it will we know if it can pay for itself. And it won’t be until next year when the employer mandate and many other more painful provisions of the law are finally implemented that it will be clear whether the entire scheme can survive and how much damage it will inflict on the economy.

. . . .

Moreover, it won’t be until next year when the politically motivated delays of the implementation of many of the law’s mandates and provisions are put in place that we will know just how serious that damage will be. Nor will we know until then just how massive the cost increases for insurance will be though even the president acknowledged they will go up. With most of the young and healthy uninsured not signing up, rates will skyrocket as companies are forced to pass on the costs of covering those with pre-existing conditions. The president’s claims that the rate of increases are going down won’t convince many who will be paying more in the coming years that the president’s boasts are justified."

Although I favor universal health care, the writing is on the wall: You can't keep your health care plan, you can't keep your doctor, and Obamacare is going to send US national debt spiraling.

And perhaps sometime in 2015, a bewildered Gail Collins will finally acknowledge, as did Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz" (my emphasis in red):

"I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."

Paul Krugman, "Health Care Nightmares": Why Did Sebelius Resign?

I often tell my children that timing is everything in life. Given Kathleen Sebelius's resignation reported last night, the timing of Paul Krugman's tendentious New York Times op-ed entitled "Health Care Nightmares" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/opinion/krugman-health-care-nightmares.html?_r=0) couldn't be worse. Krugman begins:

"When it comes to health reform, Republicans suffer from delusions of disaster. They know, just know, that the Affordable Care Act is doomed to utter failure, so failure is what they see, never mind the facts on the ground."

Obamacare is doing just fine? Oh really? Have a look at Michael Gerson's recent Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obamacare has spawned a misguided debate" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-obamacare-has-spawned-a-misguided-debate/2014/04/07/f51d8528-be82-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html?hpid=z2). Gerson writes:

"[N]ever mind that the actual goal was not 7 million exchange sign-ups; it was health insurance enrollments, which are likely to be significantly fewer. And never mind that the number of the previously uninsured seems a remarkably small portion of these sign-ups — well under half. (Health wonk Bob Laszewski estimates that only about 27 percent of Americans eligible for Obamacare subsidies have enrolled in the system.) And never mind that, even including the Medicaid expansion, the most optimistic estimates of reductions in the number of the uninsured are much less than what the Congressional Budget Office projected before the rollout began. And never mind that all these decreases in the uninsured seem small in comparison to the amount of money spent, displacement caused and political capital expended.

And never mind that the proportion of younger and healthier enrollees to those with preexisting conditions is still being determined and that many analysts expect double-digit insurance premium increases in many state exchanges (particularly those with limited insurance competition). And never mind that health-care cost inflation has suddenly spiked to a 10-year high."

Indeed, as Sebelius knows, Obamacare is a disaster, and the news surrounding this boondoggle is only going to get worse, but why should any of the facts recited by Gerson get in the way of Krugman's opinion?

Mind you, I don't like Republicans or Democrats - narcissistic personality disorders run rampant among politicians. Also, I favor universal health care.

Obamacare, however, is a disaster no matter how you try to spin it.

Maureen Dowd, "The Spies Who Didn’t Love Her": Obama's Worst Tuesday

“And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We cannot pick it up.
There is no way at all!”

― Dr. Seuss, "The Cat in the Hat"

It was quite the Tuesday for the beleaguered Obama administration.

Obama and friends were forced to acknowledge that Obamacare February sign-up numbers were far below those needed to attain the administration's target of 6 million enrolled people by the end of March. As reported by Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in a Washington Post article entitled "Pace of health exchange enrollment slows in February, figures show" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pace-of-health-exchange-enrollment-slows-in-february-figures-show/2014/03/11/6eb32e16-a93d-11e3-8d62-419db477a0e6_story.html?hpid=z3):

"The Obama administration said 943,000 Americans selected health plans, compared to 1.2 million in January. Overall, enrollment stood at 4.2 million as of the end of last month.

Contrary to the Obama administration’s expectations, fewer people chose health plans last month than in either January or December. And the proportion of young adults — a critical demographic if the marketplaces are to function well — did not increase compared with January."

But wait, there's more. As acknowledged by Maureen Dowd in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Spies Who Didn’t Love Her" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/dowd-the-spies-who-didnt-love-her.html?smid=tw-NYTimesDowd&seid=auto&_r=0), there is a new scandal engulfing the Obama administration, which involves alleged CIA hacking of Senate computers and removal of documents. Dowd writes:

"In June, [CIA Director John] Brennan had issued a 122-page classified rebuttal to the still-classified $40 million, 6,300-page Senate report. But [Dianne] Feinstein said on the floor that she found the C.I.A. riposte 'puzzling,' given that the Panetta internal review admitted to what the C.I.A.’s rebuttal objected to. Given the C.I.A.’s 2005 destruction of videotapes showing the torture of two Al Qaeda operatives, Feinstein said she has now locked up in the committee vault in the Hart Office Building the parts of the Panetta review that her staff had printed out before it disappeared. She has also requested in writing that Brennan turn over a complete version of the review to the committee.

She said she has received no answers from Brennan, who is no fan of Congress or the media, to her formal questions about the agency’s actions and no response to her request for an apology."

Yup, this time it's 80-year-old Democratic Senator Feinstein making the accusations and demanding an apology, and it's going to be a bit harder for Barack and friends to assert that partisan politics are the basis for the brouhaha.

Brennan? Nominated by Obama to succeed David Petraeus as director of the CIA, he was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee in March 2013. Brennan and the CIA report to the Director of National Intelligence, who reports to the president.

Obama's excuse this time? Did he also read about it in the newspapers like the rest of us? Will he refuse to fire Brennan, in much the same way that he has failed to lay a finger on Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius?

It's all out of control.

A silver lining to the story? Always! Obama's inept response to Putin's invasion of Crimea is now fast fading into the past . . .

Maureen Dowd, "High School Maniacal": Narcissism and the Undoing of a Republican Presidential Candidate

Do we ever forget our high school years? Recently, I was stunned to learn that my first love had passed away more than a decade ago. How could this be? I still remembered her red hair and smile, and notwithstanding the passing of the years and my own graying hair, in my mind, she had never grown old.

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "High School Maniacal" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/opinion/dowd-high-school-maniacal.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd examines how New Jersey Governor Christ Christie continues to live out his high school years in an ongoing squabble with "old schoolmate and handpicked point man at the Port Authority, David Wildstein" over Bridgegate. Dowd writes:

"It’s risible but sort of alarming that, decades later, Christie is boasting that he was more of a big shot than Wildstein in high school, putting down the guy he created a job for, and going out of his way to say they were not even friends back when they were both connected to the Livingston Lancers — Christie as an ebullient, trim catcher; Wildstein as a quiet, bespectacled statistician.

. . . .

Bristling with narcissism and punitive aggression, he drove his point home: 'We didn’t travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time.'"

Yikes! This was the front runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2016? If Christie had any good sense, he would acknowledge his ultimate responsibility for this fiasco and retire from public office.

Meanwhile, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "In Christie saga, keep calm and gossip on" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-keep-calm-and-gossip-on/2014/02/04/3ba39658-8ddd-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html?hpid=z2), Kathleen Parker entertains the very real possibility that Christie didn't know of Wildstein's behavior:

"As the Christie scandal machine grinds on, his polling numbers un-shockingly are plummeting. Once in the lead in a fantasy presidential race, he now trails Hillary Clinton 39 percent to 55 percent. In the race for the GOP nomination, he trails Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul, tying with Jeb Bush.

But the night is young. It remains entirely possible that Christie is telling the truth. And evidence may or may not exist. Which means a new narrative must fill the void. It goes like this: Even if he’s telling the truth, Christie created the culture in which his people felt free to abuse power."

A "new" narrative? For me, this has been and always will be the "only" narrative. Presidents, secretaries of state, secretaries of health and governors must take responsibility for all that happens under their watch.

But Christie has no more good sense than Hillary, who, notwithstanding her ultimate responsibility for the Benghazi debacle, should also call it quits, or Kathleen Sebelius, who should have resigned long ago over the Obamacare rollout debacle.

The West is being devastated by a plague of narcissism, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, and there are those who believe that owing to its prevalence, it should no longer be deemed a personality disorder.

Ultimately, it is this me-first culture - not Putin or Khamenei - that will bring the temple down on our heads.

May the Lord have mercy on us!

Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real": Obamacare Problems "Receding in the Rear-View Mirror"

In one of my blog entries yesterday entitled "Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real": Krugman Gets Delusional II" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/paul-krugman-obama-gets-real-krugman.html), I noted how Nobelist Krugman is now claiming that Obama is "finally sounding like the progressive many of his supporters thought they were backing in 2008." In this opinion piece  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/krugman-obama-gets-real.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0) Krugman also made another "interesting" observation:

"HealthCare.gov is working much better, people are signing up in growing numbers, and the whole mess is already receding in the rear-view mirror."

Yup, HealthCare.gov is working much better. The website can now potentially handle 50,000 visitors at one time, but 15,000 of them are placed on a waiting queue. Moreover, it is estimated that back-end errors have affected approximately one-third of the people who have signed up for health plans since October 1, i.e. they might think that they have health care coverage, but they don't.

And whereas some 50,000 people may have succeed in obtaining health care packages via the Obamacare website, another 5 million people have had their health care insurance cancelled owing to enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

Furthermore, we are now learning that prior to the rollout of Obamacare, the president simply didn't bother meeting with his Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. As reported by Politico (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/the-zero-meeting-president-100767.html?ml=po_r):

"A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) analysis finds that from July 12, 2010, to Nov. 30, 2013, the president’s public schedule records zero one-on-one meetings between Obama and Sebelius. Equally shocking, over the same period, the president's calendar lists 277 private meetings with his other Cabinet secretaries (excluding full Cabinet meetings).

Given these startling findings, and the fact that the White House calendar did not reflect meetings prior to July 12, 2010, GAI researchers then performed a second analysis using another respected recorder of presidential activity, the POLITICO presidential calendar. The results: Just one April 21, 2010 entry was found listing a White House meeting between Obama and Sebelius—and even that was a joint meeting with then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner."

Yes, Obamacare is a disaster which is still playing out.

Krugman? Do you remember how he once wrote concerning Occupy Wall Street (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html):

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

And just where is Occupy Wall Street today?

Well, let's see where Obamacare is in another year. My guess is that its future will be no more sanguine than that of Occupy Wall Street, to which the president was also sympathetically disposed.

Maureen Dowd, "Pigskin Pride and Prejudice": How Do RGIII and the Redskins Stack Up Against Obama's Offensive Team

I am, and always will be, a Chicago Bears fan, but regretably I don't see Da Bears making it into the playoffs this season. As I get older, I begin to wonder whether I will again be blessed in this lifetime with another magical championship season as occurred in 1985. Meanwhile, my orange Bears shirt has grown old and is full of holes, and my wife has asked me to toss it into the garbage. No way!

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Pigskin Pride and Prejudice" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/opinion/dowd-pigskin-pride-and-prejudice.html?_r=0), Maureen Dowd focuses on the flagging fortunes of the Washington Redskins, mired in a losing season. Dowd writes of Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III:

"He went from being cheered as a magical quarterback and magnetic leader to being belittled as a college-level player and blame-shifter. The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins upbraided RGIII, once hailed as “Cool Hand Luke,” for acting like “an unteachable know-it-all.” Wide receiver Santana Moss suggested that RGIII, and other teammates, have to not blame others, “have to, at some point, stand up and say ‘me’ or ‘I.’ ”"

Care to play a game? Replace "RGIII" in the preceding paragraph with "Barack Obama." Does it ring true?

Of course, Obama doesn't blame others for his administration's failures. In the Obama administration, no one, including Kathleen Sebelius, is to blame. Rather, Obama has taken to excusing himself by explaining, "I didn't know."

Well, RGIII and the Redskins, if they continue to play by this name, could still recover next season.

Obama and his offensive (pun intended) team - Kerry, Hagel, Sebelius, Power, Carey and Jarrett, just to name a few - are finished.

[Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei is busy making a fool out of President Obama. Notwithstanding the "agreement" to the contrary that Obama negotiated with Khamenei in Oman, Iran has today announced that it will continue with its construction of the Arak nuclear reactor, which, when operational, will produce enough plutonium for two atomic bombs each year (see: http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iran-Construction-will-continue-at-Arak-nuclear-site-333166). Pursuant to the deal, components for the facility can also continue to be built off-site. Only Obama and his team of naifs could possibly have expected otherwise.]

Gail Collins, "Who’s Sorry Now?": When Obama Loses Collins, It's "Game Over"

Less than a year into his second term, Obama is already finished. Yesterday, he lost uber-liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who concluded in an opinion piece entitled "Obama’s political malpractice" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-political-malpractice-of-the-highest-order/2013/11/14/e6b95abe-4d69-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html):

"Belatedly, with congressional Republicans pouncing and Democrats threatening to bolt, Obama on Thursday proffered a supposed (it depends on the kindness of insurers and state insurance commissioners) and temporary (one-year) fix. By then, the exchanges should be functional, but will premiums climb higher as healthier people stick with existing plans?

Listening to the president Thursday was painful. He acknowledged the need 'to win back some credibility.' He 'fumbled the rollout' of health care. He is 'letting . . . down' congressional Democrats who took the risk of supporting Obamacare. Although he’s sometimes been 'slapped around a little bit unjustly,' the president said, 'This one’s deserved, all right? It’s on us.'

Can he recover? I’m sorry to say: I’m not at all confident."

Well, bad has become worse. Today, he also lost Gail Collins. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Who’s Sorry Now?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/opinion/collins-whos-sorry-now.html?_r=0), Collins writes in inimitable bonbon style:

"The chaos surrounding the rollout of health care reform is a terrible blow to people who’ve been standing behind the president through thin and thin. They had already come to grips with the fact that the guy who once taught constitutional law wasn’t going to protect their privacy from government snoops. That their old peace candidate really loved the idea of shooting people down with drones. That he was probably never going to be able to deliver on serious immigration reform, or gun control or even expanded preschool.

But there was still affordable health care, a goal that had been eluding presidents since Teddy Roosevelt, which had required so many breathtaking leaps of political faith to pass and protect. One achievement so big it was pretty much enough.

And then the website didn’t work and longstanding promises were broken and the whole thing was turning into a joke on the Country Music Association Awards."

Fast forward to Collins's conclusion:

"At his press conference, the president noted — kind of bragged, really — that the Obama campaign had been spot-on when it came to information technology. Then he complained that the way the federal government purchases I.T. 'is cumbersome, complicated and outdated.'

Since he already knew 'that the federal government has not been good at this stuff in the past,' Obama continued, his crack advisers should have prepared to go around that problem 'two years ago' when planning for the rollout began.

Yes!

'... But that doesn’t help us now. We’ve got to move forward.'

Sigh."

Obama's "crack advisers"? Does this include Kerry, Hagel, Sebelius? The president is better off with a team of crack addicts.

Of course, Obama still has die-hard loyalists, lending support, at his request, to his imbecilic foreign policy: Thomas Friedman (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/11/thomas-friedman-what-about-us-is-thomas.html), David Ignatius (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/11/david-ignatius-stakes-of-iranian-deal.html), and the editorial board of The New York Times (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/opinion/not-the-time-to-squeeze-iran.html?hpw&rref=opinion). But when Obama loses Collins, it's truly "game over."

New York Times Editorial, "The Health Site’s Chaotic Debut": All the Lies That Are Fit to Print

The scandals surrounding the Obama administration continue fast and furious, but if you are a New York Times reader, you would never know it.

In an editorial entitled "The Health Site’s Chaotic Debut" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/the-health-sites-chaotic-debut.html?_r=0), The New York Times actually chastizes Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, for Obamacare's disastrous rollout:

"The administration created the Web site so the buck necessarily stops with high officials — Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and President Obama himself — who allowed this to happen. The administration attributes the problems partly to unexpectedly high demand from people eager to compare insurance policies available in their states and partly to technical glitches that blocked or slowed people from submitting applications and erroneous data being sent to insurers. Why the administration failed to anticipate the high demand has never been explained. Nor has it clearly explained the nature of the technical problems — or who in government or among the private contractors is primarily responsible for them."

But of course, the Times must also blame those nefarious Republicans:

"Many Congressional Republicans are eager to exploit the start-up problems as evidence that health care reform is doomed to failure and ought to be delayed. They ignore the fact that Republican-led states contributed to the start-up problems by refusing to set up their own exchanges and dumping the task on the federal government."

Hmm, so the Republicans should also share in the blame, owing to the additional traffic they generated for the federal website. Or should they?

The Times perpetuates the Obama administration's claim that the system failed owing to "high demand," but is this indeed the case? According to an article in today's Washington Post entitled "Health insurance exchange launched despite signs of serious problems" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-insurance-exchange-launched-despite-signs-of-serious-problems/2013/10/21/161a3500-3a85-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html) by Lena H. Sun and Scott Wilson (my emphasis in red):

"Days before the launch of President Obama’s online health ­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.

Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead.

. . . .

There were ample warning signs that the system was not working properly, according to people familiar with the project.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency in charge of running the health insurance exchange in 36 states, invited about 10 insurers to give advice and help test the Web site.

About a month before the exchange opened, this testing group urged agency officials not to launch it nationwide because it was still riddled with problems, according to an insurance IT executive who was close to the rollout."

The website couldn't operate when "just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously," yet the Times is blaming Republicans for "refusing to set up their own exchanges and dumping the task on the federal government"?

Get real!