Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Blue Yeti · May 26, 2012 at 9:12pm

Another Saturday night special edition of The Hinderaker-Ward Experience is ready for your listening pleasure. It’s John Hinderaker of Power Line and Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas breaking down the big stories of the week. These include President Obama’s straight-faced claims of leading the most fiscally responsible administration in the last 60 years and Obama’s perhaps not unrelated difficulties in cracking 60% of the vote running against convicted felons and “none of the above” in Democratic primaries around the country.

Special guest this week is New York Times best selling author Edward Klein. His latest book is THE hot buzz story on the Internet this week, it’s The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House. Via hundreds of personal interviews with political and Obama insiders Ed provides previously undocumented details on the President’s background and performance in office over his first term. Lots of juicy tidbits as well, including Bill Clinton’s real opinion of Obama, Valerie Jarrett’s undue influence in the White House, and the acrimonious rivalry between Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

Later, Loon of the Week (top Democrat official claims of unnatural relations between Romney and a corporate entity) and This Week in Gate Keeping (how changing one word can REALLY affect the accuracy of a story).

We hope you enjoy, and comments and feedback are always most welcome.

Comment (7)
· Quote
· UnfollowFollow (0)
· Edit

Comments:

show elprez's comment (#1) ←

Joined
Oct '11

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

elprez

Someone needed to turn down his microphone while Klein was talking. Otherwise, an interesting interview.

#1 ·
May 28, 2012 at 8:25am ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Flag
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

show elprez's comment (#2) ←

Joined
Oct '11

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

elprez

Brian Ward---can you turn down your microphone when you're not talking? The heavy breathing every 3 seconds or so is annoying.

#2 ·
May 28, 2012 at 8:32am ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Flag
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

show Al Kennedy's comment (#3) ←

Joined
Oct '10

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Al Kennedy

Thanks very much for an always informative and enjoyable HWX podcast. I second The Amateur as a "must read". I started it one evening and had to stay up late to finish it. Just a reminder: Ronald Reagan took Gerald Ford to the Republican Convention in 1976 with a very strong primary challenge. Ford subsequently lost to Carter.

#3 ·
May 28, 2012 at 1:49pm ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Flag
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

→ show Brian Ward's comment (#4)

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Brian Ward

elprez: Brian Ward---can you turn down your microphone when you're not talking? The heavy breathing every 3 seconds or so is annoying. · _{May 27 at 11:32pm}

Got it, less respiration. Breathing is over rated.

Or I can remember to NOT engage in my deep knee bend regimen during the taping. Good tips.

#4 ·
May 30, 2012 at 5:02am ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

show Paul Stinchfield's comment (#5) ←

Joined
May '10

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Paul Stinchfield

Here is a passage from The Amateur documenting what Ed Klein said in the interview:

During his dinner with the historians, Obama indicated that he had a preference for a corporatist political system in which the economy would be collectively managed by big employers, big unions, and government officials through a formal mechanism at the national level. Also known as state capitalism, it is a system in which the government picks winners and promotes economic growth.

This corporatist approach was hardly a new idea. It had been around for more than one hundred and fifty years. It had been tried in the 1930s and 1940s by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascists, and in Europe after World War II by democratic-socialist governments in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, among others. In America during the1970s and 1980s, left wing Democratic presidential candidates Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis revived the idea, arguing that America should replace free-market capitalism with what they called “a neo-corporatist state.”

#5 ·
June 28, 2012 at 1:42am ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Flag
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

Amazon.com Widgets

show Paul Stinchfield's comment (#6) ←

Joined
May '10

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Paul Stinchfield

The passage continues:

Though the corporatist idea had an unbroken record of failure both in Europe and America, where voters had decisively rejected Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis, Obama was determined to embrace this discredited economic, political, and social philosophy. He planned to achieve his “transformational” presidency by vastly expanding the reach of Washington into the everyday life of American citizens.

In that regard, the American president whom Obama most closely resembled was not JFK, Reagan, Lincoln, or Franklin Roosevelt. It was Woodrow Wilson, whose conception of himself was aptly described by the noted conservative historian Forrest McDonald (also missing at the White House dinner) as “little short of messianic.”

#6 ·
June 28, 2012 at 1:45am ·
LikeUnlike (0) Like (0)
· Quote
· Flag
· Edit
·
· See in contextDirect link

show Paul Stinchfield's comment (#7) ←

Joined
May '10

Re: Hinderaker-Ward Experience #26: The Amateur

Paul Stinchfield

In 1969 Cornell University was taken over by radical students, some of them armed. Political science professor Walter Berns conducted an experiment that revealed the true soul of the American Left:

I proved this when, to an American Government class at the height of the Cornell crisis, I read some speeches analyzing the situation and calling for what ought to be done. The radicals in the class were enthusiastic until I revealed that the speeches were by Mussolini.

(from Democracy and the Constitution, 2006)