Lying His Way To A Second Term
Here's my latest depressing theory: Obama's going to win a second term. Why? 1. - Duh! - the complete lack of credible opposition. 2. Shale gas.
I wonder how many of you realize just what a game-changer shale gas is. It has, for example, turned the US from a net importer to a net exporter of gas - thus giving it more of that much coveted thing "energy security"; it has resulted in a collapse in US gas prices which, though not beneficial to the producer is a massive boon to the consumer (whether struggling individuals trying to keep up with their energy bills or companies struggling to make a profit in the grimmest economic climate since the Great Depression). It's cheap, it's abundant, it's (relatively) low-carbon...
And, just as he did with the killing of Bin Laden, Obama is going to steal all the credit it for it.
But m'learned colleague Christopher Booker smells a rat. He was unfortunate enough to have woken up in the middle of night and found himself accidentally listening to Potus's State of the Union Lie-Fest.
A later passage in Obama’s speech, when he hailed the way his country’s energy future has been transformed by the miracle of shale gas, met with a storm of applause. Not only would this give the US energy security for decades, creating 600,000 jobs, but it could now go all out to exploit its gas and oil reserves (more applause). Yet this was the man who in 2008 couldn’t stop talking about the threat of global warming, and was elected on a pledge to make the US only the second country in the world, after Britain, to commit to cutting its CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by 80 per cent within 40 years.
Even more telling than his audience’s response to this, however, was what happened when Obama referred briefly to the need to develop “clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes”. But no mention now of vast numbers of wind turbines – those props beside which he constantly chose to be filmed back in 2008. No harking back to his boast that “renewable energy” would create “four million jobs”. And even to this sole fleeting reminder of what, four years ago, was his flagship policy the response of Congress was a deafening silence.
I suppose we've always known that politicians lie. But since when was it OK for them to be quite so brazen about it?
Actually, I can answer that: it became OK when we started to let them get away with it. Will anyone in your toothless MSM actually call Obama on the vast gulf between what he claims to have done to the US energy industry (created jobs; encouraged new technologies) and what he has actually done (squandered billions on crony-capitalism disasters like Solyndra, carpeted the US with bird-chomping wind farms and useless solar arrays, cancelled Keystone XL, cost the economy billions....)? Course not. They're far too busy chastising Republicans (as I heard one ghastly blonde CNN presenter do the other day) for being insufficiently bi-partisan - ie not allowing Obama to railroad through more of his hard-left projects.
I still think the US economy is toast built as it is like most Western economies on a Ponzi scheme of inflated paper money. But I think what shale gas has done is to buy Obama time.
Cheer up, though, everyone. 2016 isn't that far away. And not all of us will be dead of poverty or civil unrest, by then. Just a few of us.
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Jul '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Obama has revealed himself to be disingenuous, callous, and lazy. He is finding America jobs one golf course at a time. The political ads make themselves. Obama laughing and swinging a club, soup kitchen, Obama partying all hours with show biz buddies 2-3 nights a week, Obamavilles, Obama promising his stimulus bill will keep unemployment below 8% and defending unemployment benefits as stimulus, the 10% drop in American average family income. Then roll into the bowing to every manner of tyrant.
Of course, Obama did not create the monetary crisis, he just poked it really hard with examples of how dangerous fiat money is, especially in the hands of a socialist with his own brand of creative destruction on his mind.
Mar '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Toss in "unobservant" and he'd make the perfect MSM zombie.
Smart people learn from their mistakes. Brilliant people learn from other people's mistakes. Obama can't recognize a mistake if you beat him over the head with it, thus Solyndra, Eric Holder, bullet trains, Cash for Clunkers, "stimulus," "Recovery Summer," et al, et cetera, ad nauseam.
He didn't create it, no, but as a "community organizer," State Senator, and U.S. Senator, he certainly helped push.
May '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
This is a true story
An oil industry representative and an NRCC functionary fell into a friendly conversation during a break from a one of the regulatory board meetings that have pretty much replaced self-government in this country.
The oil guy asked, "What is your ultimate goal, anyway?"
The NRCC guy said, "To ban the use of fossil fuels, of course."
The oil guy responds, "What do you propose to replace them with?"
NRCC: "Oh, that's you're problem."
*****
The problem with triangulating between honest people and dishonest nihilists is that the nihilists in the end will win. It will just take a little longer.
Mar '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
mesquito:
The problem with triangulating between honest people and dishonest nihilists is that the nihilists in the end will win. It will just take a little longer. · 1 minute ago
As we asymptotically approach pure anarchy, hopefully there will be a little pullback.
We're not there yet, apparently.
Aug '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
It is only because Obama has recognized that shale gas buys him time, that he has refrained from taking the default liberal position that shale gas is an evil, groundwater-polluting method of extracting climate-warming hydrocarbons, the continued use of which needlessly delays the glorious day when our electric grid will be powered by charming windmills and our vehicles will be fueled by clean, abundant unicorn tears.
Jan '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
So, Obama is a liar, and someone is surprised?
Aug '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
No one in the "toothless MSM" will call Obama on much of anything because the MSM is the de facto microphone of the DNC.
Mar '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
James, I fear you are right, but I'd put more weight on 1 than 2.
Mr Obama is indeed a master of taking credit, blaming others, and Orwellian double-speak.
Mr Romney will probably win the nomination, and lose the General. His negative ads may work against Mr Gingrich, but not Mr Obama, who is far better at being the good-cop while his team and the media (but I repeat myself) do their Alinsky bad-cop routine.
That America would fall for this twice is beyond belief, but we are watching it unfold before our very eyes.
So, yes, 2016 is not that far away, but far enough for Obamacare to be in place, the military dismantled (apart from drones and seal team 6), the Islamists in power across the Middle East, and for the USA to be umpteen trillion dollars deeper in dept.
Depressing, indeed!
Edited on January 30, 2012 at 3:34pmAug '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
But right there in the same SOTU speech, after he talked about extracting all this natural gas from the ground, he added that he would make sure we do it safely. In other words, he gave himself an out. His EPA has passed enough regulations and restrictions to ensure that we'll never access our own resources.
Jun '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
It's how Obama understands freedom. He's freed himself from the burden of personal accountability, by means of obtaining political power. He hasn't freed you from accountability--just himself. You'll have to "organize the community" and obtain your own political power. That's his freedom song.
May '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
I have just spent eight days in the belly of the beast, banding birds on the Panama border of Costa Rica with a number of eco-lib kooks. I do love these people, we have been friends and colleagues for years, but they have no idea that I have a different perspective. They assume that since I am there participating I must see things the way they do.
The subject of fracking came up, and the lead scientist on our project, a reasonable and thoughtful guy, explained about the "nasty" chemicals involved and the inability to explain where they go when the process is complete. The assumption is that it goes into the groundwater. One of our new participants thought he had read something about it recently and was going to try to find the evidence that it is a nasty, polluting, carbon-laden process that will kill or deform us in the long run. These people have no interest in research to the contrary, or improvements in the process that remove the need for nasty chemicals. Fracking is just evil and we can't do it.
A large part of the battle is fighting willful denial of facts.
Aug '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Sounds wonderful! Well, except for the eco-libs. But . . .
Yes, I agree. I've moved in similar circles, and they are usually very nice, and because they're often wealthy, they'll spring for coffee and doughnuts on those cold mornings doing the Christmas Bird Counts.
Feb '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
...his country’s energy future has been transformed by the miracle of shale gas, met with a storm of applause.
Obama conveniently forgot to mention that his devoted cadres of rabid eco-wombats are fighting shale gas with every weapon in their luddite tree-hugger arsenal. The immediate target of their attack is 'fracking', the technology without which all that gas might as well be sitting in some outlying planet circling Alpha Centauri. By making that resource accessible and thus thwarting, for the time being, the political agenda of the eco-left, fracking has earned itself the dubious title of "Most Evil Technology In The History Of The Universe."
In the uppermost portion of the Marcellus shale field (New York state) exploration has been all but shut down by environmentalists. They are attempting the same thing in PA, aided by the yellow journalism of the 'newspaper of record', but with limited success - so far. Their efforts are not just at the state level. Anti-fracking agitation is intense at the federal level as well. Give Obama another four years and a couple of Supreme Court appointments and domestic oil and gas exploration will be history.
Feb '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
PJS:
The subject of fracking came up, and the lead scientist on our project, a reasonable and thoughtful guy, explained about the "nasty" chemicals involved and the inability to explain where they go when the process is complete. The assumption is that it goes into the groundwater. One of our new participants thought he had read something about it recently and was going to try to find the evidence that it is a nasty, polluting, carbon-laden process that will kill or deform us in the long run. These people have no interest in research to the contrary, or improvements in the process that remove the need for nasty chemicals. Fracking is just evil and we can't do it.
The Marcellus lies at a depth of 7,000 feet, the Utica at 12,000. The local aquifers are at 200 to 300 feet. The thousands of feet of rock separating the two is essentially unpenetrable in either direction. That's why the gas is still there. The problems in the Dimmock, PA area that the press has been trumpeting were due solely to sloppy casing work by one company - Cabot.
Feb '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
PJS:
the lead scientist on our project, a reasonable and thoughtful guy, explained about the "nasty" chemicals involved and the inability to explain where they go when the process is complete.
A 'scientist' outside of his own (in this day and age) narrow and ultra-specialized field is no more credible than a random stranger stopped on the street. Unfortunately, the hubris generated by earning a Ph.D. tends to lead to delusions of omniscience.
Apr '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Mr. Dellingpole, I love your writing, but you can be very depressing. This is not your latest theory. I believe you have predicted Obama's second term several times at this point. Come on, buck up!! We're going to win this thing.
May '10
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Doc
Mr. Dellingpole, I love your writing, but you can be very depressing. This is not your latest theory. I believe you have predicted Obama's second term several times at this point. Come on, buck up!! We're going to win this thing. · 6 minutes ago
Finally! Amen, Doc!
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
@keith @doc Guys, guys, exposure to a bit of healthy British uber-cynicism is good. Think of it as a form of inoculation against the disappointment and horror to come: when the best case scenario is that Mitt Romney becomes president, man, you know times are bad.
Apr '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
Just an anecdote from me, so take it with a grain of salt as it has no basis in scientific polling. I was at a school function for one of my kids this weekend and a bunch of the folks were talking politics. I know that of the 8 in the group, seven are moderates, but ardent Obama supporters in '08 and 1 is a right leaning moderate who pulled the lever for Obama as well. The subject of GOP primaries came up and they rolled their eyes at Newt and made fun of Mitt's lack of personality and Rick's crazy social values. I jumped in and said, "hey, none of these guys could be any worse than the inexperienced buffoon sitting in the oval office now". I half expected them to walk away in disgust, but a funny thing happened: one of them agreed with me! Then most of the others said they might not vote for the GOP, but they definitely would not vote again for Obama. And then the conversation turned to how bad Obama has been. (continued)
Apr '11
Re: Lying His Way To A Second Term
It's as if my snarky comment allowed these people to breathe a sigh of relief and speak their mind. While I think this election will be difficult and the GOP field is pretty awful, there are many, many folks out there like these 8. They've been fed a constant diet of the Obama cult for 4 years (including the '08 POTUS campaign) but know that there is something rotten in Denmark and are afraid to speak out because they are embarrased and think they are alone. Polling this time around will be useless as there are just too many people that won't admit to another human being that they dislike Obama but won't vote for him when that curtain closes behind them.
With Obama the MSM has gone beyond the typical DEM support they show for every left politician. They have actually pulled off a quasi-Pravda effort of deifying Obama and making educated moderates afraid to believe their own eyes and brains!!