But forget the man’s ego (and the world’s inverted moral compass) for a minute, and think about the man’s balls. That’s right, his balls. In his acceptance speech this morning, he said the award represents all of those working for peace and opportunity, and specifically mentioned activists working for democracy even though it puts them at risk. Pretty amazing to praise the same folks whom you’ve just abandoned in Iran by refusing modest funding to the organization that documents their persecution.

Here’s an idea for you, Mr. President. Take your prize money and give it to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.  That should provide about half the funding you just refused them.

UPDATE: Nick Gillespie at Reason suggests Obama should decline the award “on principle” and one of his commenters takes it one step further: “If he accepts it, he is every bit the megelomaniac [sic] his worst critics say he is.”

UPDATE #2: Finally found a transcript of Obama’s acceptance speech. Here’s the passage I’m referring to (emphasis mine):

And that’s why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity; for the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard, even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy; for the soldier who sacrificed through tour after tour of duty on behalf of someone half a world away; and for all those men and women across the world who sacrifice their safety and their freedom and sometime their lives for the cause of peace.

If you really care about those folks, Mr. President, send these folks the prize money.

UPDATE #3: Michelle Malkin is soliciting suggestions for what Obama should do with the $1.4 million prize.

But I have been inspired. Not enough to write anything of my own, for the moment. But enough to think I’ll get back in the swing of thing in the next few days. The inspiration comes from Moe Lane, who offers the wittiest thing I’ve seen written in all the bloggery over Obama’s anf Oprah’s failure to ensure the enrichment of their Chicago friends with the 2016 Olympics at the expense of the general population of the city:

Wow.  Can the IOC come back tomorrow and eliminate Chicago from consideration again?  This is proving to be unexpectedly entertaining.

Like I said. Inspired.

Click the image for the punchline

]]> http://www.skepticrats.com/2009/08/12/conservatives-can-rhyme-too/feed/ 1 http://www.skepticrats.com/2009/08/06/when-iconic-images-collide/ http://www.skepticrats.com/2009/08/06/when-iconic-images-collide/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:02:03 +0000 Deuce Geary http://www.skepticrats.com/?p=2205 Well, in this case, the end result seems rather obvious.

Think they’ll stop complaining now that the white face is gone? Nah, me either.

UPDATE: I changed the original Joker image to include the “Socialism” caption. I’m still catching up  on my  reading about this, and didn’t realize the caption was part of the original artwork. Speaking of catching up on my reading, Allahpundit had some terrific commentary on the absurdity of finding racism in so many criticisms of Obama:

[The WaPo column] reminds me of when McCain’s “Celebrity” ad debuted and the left went on a three-day bender trying to top each other with ever more inventive theories about the alleged racial subtext. It’s a parlor game for progressive nerds: Take any conservative attack on Obama, assume racism, and then connect as many dots as you need to in order to get from point A to point B. Here it’s Obama = Joker; Joker = terrorizes city; terrorizing cities = stereotype of blacks; ergo, Obama = stereotype of blacks. It’s like “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” but with political benefits.

UPDATE #2: Yikes! Fixed a typo that might have left the wrong impression. “They’ll” used to be “they’s,” which approximated the Amos & Andy style of speech.

Hold on a second, somebody’s telling me something . . .

Huh? It’s satire? Really?

During the Bush years, what was best about liberalism had bled away. One of the worst things about the Republican Party has always been its Kissingerian realpolitik, the “it’s just business” approach to world affairs that amounted to a willful blindness to our ideals beyond our own borders. The Democratic Party may not have always gotten the policies right, but it had a firm grasp of the principle.

In the 1990s, liberals championed “nation building,” and conservatives chuckled at the naivete of it. Then came Iraq, and Republicans out of necessity embraced what liberals once believed out of conviction. The result? Liberals ran from their principles, found their inner Kissingers and embraced a cold realism whose chill emanated from the corpse of their ideals.

Labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, once battled tyranny abroad on the grounds that workers everywhere need democracy. Today, the president turns a blind eye to the independent labor movement in Iran, and the unions and Democrats spend their time trying to figure out how to eliminate the secret ballot in the American workplace.

Read it. And also read Dr. Melissa Clouthier’s take:

Words matter. President Obama knows this. He uses words like others wield swords. Mostly, he uses them to benefit himself. It’s time for him to use words to benefit the oppressed people of the world. Iran is a nice start.

There’s a good link round-up in her post, too.

As for me, I’m up late working. But I figure I’ll be OK tomorrow, because I plane to create or save several hours so I can get a full night’s sleep even though I’m going to bed late.

But the best commentary by far is Andrew McCarthy’s announcement at The Corner that he is “Getting Healthier by the Day!” It reads:

I just did or saved 100 push-ups — and I never had to leave my chair! Plan to do or save 200 tomorrow.

Now that’s an exercise program anyone can follow!

McCarthy’s follow-up isn’t bad, either.

UPDATE: Pundette is all over this with a great round-up. She looking for more links, so send ‘em if ya got ‘em to pundette at gmail dot com.

To be fair here, our first observation should go out to our Republican and conservative friends who were supporters of President Bush for the last eight years. If you didn’t complain – and do so loudly and often – about President Bush shattering all previous records for presidential vacation time in the midst of two wars that he began and various other crises, you should know how you look if you complain now. All those trips to Crawford and other destinations were on the public dime, involving Air Force One, staffers, supporting crew, etc. And they cost a fortune. If you take to the streets in manufactured outrage over this evening out, you are hypocrites, and there’s really no other way to put it.

Now, for the rest of our friends, if you were critical of President Bush for his vacationing ways, will you really just shrug your shoulders and say this is “no big deal” since it’s Obama going out on the town? The trip still involved three Gulfstream Jets, a large staff and press corps following, blocking off traffic for hours across several blocks in Manhattan on a Saturday afternoon and evening and a total taxpayer bill which the White House couldn’t even estimate for us. And it took place not only in the midst of two hot wars, but on the eve of GM likely going bankrupt and a rising unemployment rate where millions of Americans are wondering if they’ll be able to afford all their groceries next month. Could the optics of this Broadway fiasco possibly be any worse?

Shaw puts those reminders in a post in which he terms the night out a “dumb move.” I’m not so sure about that. It would be a dumb move if Obama were to take flack for it anywhere but on righty blogs and from Republican politicians. It’ not a dumb move if it gets no negative mainstream press coverage . . . which I doubt it will. In fact, it’s pretty damn smart if the righty blogs can be painted as “hyperventilating” — which I think they are — and the vocal Republicans are painted as hypocritical for the reasons Shaw notes.

UPDATE: And more common sense, from DrewM at Ace’s:

I’m of two mind about this. A President shouldn’t be a prisoner in the White House and the simple fact is it’s expensive for him to do anything. It’s just the reality of the modern world.

What does bother me is that had George W. Bush or any Republican had done this, especially during this economy, the Democrats and their press mouthpieces would be going nuts.