◼ A Sunday New York Times front page story — New York Times! — might have killed President Obama’s re-election hopes.
The story is called ◼ “The Competitor in Chief — Obama Plays To Win, In Politics and Everything Else.” It is devastating.
With such a title, and from such a friendly organ, at first I thought Jodi Kantor’s piece would be a collection of Obama’s greatest political wins: His rapid rise in Illinois, his win over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, the passage of health care, and so on.
But the NYT piece is not about any of that. Rather, it is a deep look into the two outstanding flaws in Obama’s executive leadership:
1. How he vastly overrates his capabilities
2. How he spends extraordinary amounts of time and energy to compete in — trivialities
...Kantor’s portrait of Obama is stunning. It paints a picture of a CEO who is unfocused and lost.
Imagine, for a minute, that you are on the board of directors of a company. You have a CEO who is not meeting his numbers and who is suffering a declining popularity with his customers. You want to help this CEO recover, but then you learn he doesn’t want your help. He is smarter than you and eager to tell you this. Confidence or misplaced arrogance? You’re not sure at first. If the company was performing well, you’d ignore it. But the company is performing poorly, so you can’t.
With some digging, you learn, to your horror, that the troubled CEO spends a lot of time on — what the hell? — bowling? Golf? Three point shots? While the company is going south?
What do you do? You fire that CEO. Clint Eastwood was right. You let the guy go.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
◼ link - Stanley Kurtz/Wall St. Journal
Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists....
CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).
Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement....
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
◼ Figures. Chicago Teacher’s Union President Linked to Former Communist Party Chief and Barack Obama - Jim Hoft/Gateway Pundit
More Hope and Change…
Mike Klonsky, an Obama supporter and former associate of the radicals who formed the terrorist group the Weatherman, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop....
So it should come as no surprise that Mike Klonsky, the former Communist Party leader, is a huge supporter of Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Chicago teachers went on strike today for the first time in 25 years despite the fact that the average teacher salary in Chicago is $74,839 a year.
◼ U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading - CNS News
Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists....
CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).
Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement....
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
◼ Figures. Chicago Teacher’s Union President Linked to Former Communist Party Chief and Barack Obama - Jim Hoft/Gateway Pundit
More Hope and Change…
Mike Klonsky, an Obama supporter and former associate of the radicals who formed the terrorist group the Weatherman, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop....
So it should come as no surprise that Mike Klonsky, the former Communist Party leader, is a huge supporter of Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Chicago teachers went on strike today for the first time in 25 years despite the fact that the average teacher salary in Chicago is $74,839 a year.
◼ U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading - CNS News
Playing Now: Hail to Us Chiefs
◼ HOW did the one formerly known as The One go for two? - Maureen Dowd/NYT
In his renomination acceptance speech here on Thursday night, he told us that America’s problems were tougher to solve than he had originally thought.
And that’s why he has kindly agreed to give us more time.
Because, after all, it’s our fault....
Our forbearing leader didn’t pander to us with that standard breakup line: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
He gave it to us straight: It’s not me, it’s you....
As the president told us, “our destinies are bound together.” So we have to stop holding him back when he’s trying to go “Forward.”
◼ “Hillary was Right” says….Maureen Dowd? - NoQuarter
What Dowd’s writing tells me is that she knew the truth from the beginning – she spotted the arrogance, the disdain, the hands off style and the obfuscation four years ago and yet she touted Mr. Obama anyway in order to serve her insatiable need to punish Hillary with the trashiest words she could muster. Perhaps she, too, just had her marching orders.
Since, as you all know, this is a drum I never tire of beating, I have saved the best for last. Thanks, Mo, for having your come to Jesus moment, however temporary, and for all the good it does now:
In his renomination acceptance speech here on Thursday night, he told us that America’s problems were tougher to solve than he had originally thought.
And that’s why he has kindly agreed to give us more time.
Because, after all, it’s our fault....
Our forbearing leader didn’t pander to us with that standard breakup line: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
He gave it to us straight: It’s not me, it’s you....
As the president told us, “our destinies are bound together.” So we have to stop holding him back when he’s trying to go “Forward.”
◼ “Hillary was Right” says….Maureen Dowd? - NoQuarter
What Dowd’s writing tells me is that she knew the truth from the beginning – she spotted the arrogance, the disdain, the hands off style and the obfuscation four years ago and yet she touted Mr. Obama anyway in order to serve her insatiable need to punish Hillary with the trashiest words she could muster. Perhaps she, too, just had her marching orders.
Since, as you all know, this is a drum I never tire of beating, I have saved the best for last. Thanks, Mo, for having your come to Jesus moment, however temporary, and for all the good it does now:
What a drag to realize that Hillary was right: big rallies and pretty words don’t always get you where you want to go.
Labels:
Democrats,
Media bias,
Pendulum,
President/Candidate Obama
Obama 52% Romney 46% among likely voters in new CNN poll.
◼ link - CDN
◼ DID CNN RIG ITS OWN POLL? - Mike Flynn/Breitbart
there are a couple of strange things within the poll that cast doubt on its veracity. And, at least one concern warrants a response from CNN.
First, this being a media poll, it has an obvious skew towards Democrats. The partisan breakdown is (D/R/I) 50/45/5. It perhaps isn't surprising that Obama is leading a D+5 poll by 6 points. Throughout the campaign season, Obama's margin usually is very close to the partisan skew in the sample. It is surprising, though, that Independents make up only 5% of the sample. Tellingly, Romney leads this group by 14 points.
I've seen others suggest that CNN pushes voters to identify with one party or the other, which may account for this. Although, CNN identifies the breakdown of sample numbers as X "registered Democrats" and Y "registered Republicans." Other polls that push Independents to identify show their work. CNN should as well.
There is another, more serious concern, however... read more, at the link.
◼ DID CNN RIG ITS OWN POLL? - Mike Flynn/Breitbart
there are a couple of strange things within the poll that cast doubt on its veracity. And, at least one concern warrants a response from CNN.
First, this being a media poll, it has an obvious skew towards Democrats. The partisan breakdown is (D/R/I) 50/45/5. It perhaps isn't surprising that Obama is leading a D+5 poll by 6 points. Throughout the campaign season, Obama's margin usually is very close to the partisan skew in the sample. It is surprising, though, that Independents make up only 5% of the sample. Tellingly, Romney leads this group by 14 points.
I've seen others suggest that CNN pushes voters to identify with one party or the other, which may account for this. Although, CNN identifies the breakdown of sample numbers as X "registered Democrats" and Y "registered Republicans." Other polls that push Independents to identify show their work. CNN should as well.
There is another, more serious concern, however... read more, at the link.
Labels:
Mitt Romney,
Polls,
President/Candidate Obama
America’s Real Fiscal Problem: Federal Goverment Has Become a Gigantic Wealth-Transfer Machine
◼ “Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine,” wrote Nicholas Eberstaadt in the Wall Street Journal. “As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined.” - Canfield Press
“Our long-term fiscal problems won’t be fixed until we address what might be our nation’s most serious fiscal-related problem: we’re increasingly becoming a European-style ‘entitlement nation,’ with ‘payments to individuals’ increasing both in absolute dollar amounts and as a share of total federal spending, while at the same time the share of Americans who face a zero or negative federal income tax liability is above 40 percent and rising,” wrote Dr. Mark J. Perry, professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the University of Michigan. “In other words, a declining share of American taxpayers is being forced to finance the rising cost of the federal government, which is increasingly being spent on payments to individuals.”
“Our long-term fiscal problems won’t be fixed until we address what might be our nation’s most serious fiscal-related problem: we’re increasingly becoming a European-style ‘entitlement nation,’ with ‘payments to individuals’ increasing both in absolute dollar amounts and as a share of total federal spending, while at the same time the share of Americans who face a zero or negative federal income tax liability is above 40 percent and rising,” wrote Dr. Mark J. Perry, professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the University of Michigan. “In other words, a declining share of American taxpayers is being forced to finance the rising cost of the federal government, which is increasingly being spent on payments to individuals.”
Labels:
Big Government,
Medicare,
Social Security,
Spending,
Taxes,
Welfare
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