When will the left get its head out of the sand?  Never, of course.  I can hardly wait for 2010!

One of my graphics, posted on my blog at Jefferson’s Rebels .  Click image to enlarge. Also available as a pdf on Scribd .

President Barack Obama epitomizes the kind of person who has achieved the The Peter Principle , that is, someone who has been promoted to a position beyond his knowledge and skills.

Is Barack Obama Incompetent?

By Mark Whittington

Associated Content

Murphy’s Law, the Peter Principle and Barack Obama

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

American Thinker

Obama’s Military Problem is Getting Worse

By Peter Feaver

Shadow Foreign Policy

The people’s choice!

Click image to enlarge.

Last night, literally less than 30 seconds after Palin ended her speech, I heard Bob Schrum on Ed Schultz’s program describe her as a “Merchant of hate with a smile”.  This angered me so much that creating this graphic was the only way I could fight back, short of breaking my TV set.

Is it fair to say that journalists deserve the lion’s share of responsibility for the way politicians are perceived by the public?  Of course it is, because they control the microphones and cameras, and they use those handy tools to portray liberals as open-minded, caring altruists, and conservatives as heartless, closed-minded religious zealots. They nearly always mention party affiliation when reporting about a conservative who has fallen from grace, but they rarely mention the party affiliation of a liberal who has behaved similarly.

Is it fair to say that we elected Barack Obama because the media was in the cheering section of the bleachers throughout the presidential campaign, and has remained there ever since he won the election?  Absolutely!  During the election, with the power of lights, cameras, television, the internet, and print media, the media managed to convince a majority of the voting public that their man was “The One” we have been waiting for.  The media believed in Obama, so they put him on a pedestal.  Describing such star-struck reporters and talking heads as journalists insults the memory of that quaint old idea of “fair-and-balanced reporting”.  So, this begs an important question.

Why do we always turn to the major networks to run the debates, and allow the journalist/moderator to choose a laundry list of cherry-picked questions to ask the candidates, especially presidential debates?  Is it simply because they own the cameras, therefore we assume we must turn control over to them, or might it be because journalists have subtley convinced us that they are smarter than everyone else simply because their faces are on television every night.  Alternatively, have we as individuals just become lazy voyeurs who accept the traditional format because the American public is unfamiliar with other formats? The answer is probably all three.  This needs to change. Now!

Even though the mainstream media has deliberately under-reported the spontaneous growth of protest against this administration, at the grassroots level it is a widely-known fact that tea party revolutionaries of all political stripes will be on red alert during future political campaigns. Thus now is the time for us to think about our expectations for future debates.  We need to change to a format that gives opposing candidates more time to express their views, and to directly challenge their opponent’s remarks, with little or no intervention by the moderator.  Putting it bluntly, we need to geld the moderator in order to give the debaters their voices back.

How do we do this?  We introduce the American public to the Oxford style of debate as often as possible.  We should begin doing this now with state and national candidates running for election in 2010 and 2012.  This will give us time to appreciate the format as we approach the election of our next President in 2012.

In our current debate format, presidential candidates generally stand before a panel of several journalists, or in some cases, a single well known journalist, all of whom arrive with a series of self-selected questions.  This process opens the door for potential bias, both because of the nature of the questions asked, and the order in which they are ranked.  Furthermore, because there are so many questions to answer, the candidates don’t get a chance to reply to any of them in great depth.  Oftentimes the audience is left with soundbite answers that work well for media citations, but less well for understanding the depth and breadth of a candidate’s knowledge, vision, and competence.

Having just criticized most of the media for their political bias, and the way presidential debates have been formatted to date, it’s very encouraging to note that National Public Radio (NPR) is producing a program using an Oxford-style format in which panelists debate big issues. And, yes, a journalist, John Donvan of CBS News, is the moderator, but his role is different than that we’ve become accustomed to watching.  This is a debate format that political candidates could easily adopt.

NPR’s program is called Intelligence Squared US .  Their format is Americanized in that it doesn’t employ all of the protocol used by the Oxford Union, such as how opponents address each other and the moderator.  Interestingly, traditional Oxford debates permit audience members to interrupt speakers at any time during the debate by standing and saying “Point of Information”.  The speaker being challenged or queried can either respond or ignore the request.  In contrast, the Americanized Oxford-style debate used by NPR does allow for questioning by the audience, but the moderator controls the timing and selects the questioners by a predetermined process.  Frankly, the former method would probably make for a much more stimulating debate, especially if the audience is moderate in size.  However, in a presidential debate, with hundreds or perhaps thousands in the audience, this would prove difficult to manage.  The traditional Oxford format also differs in another way with respect to audience participation.  After opponents and proponents have finished making their cases, anyone in the audience is permitted to make a two-minute speech for either side of the issue.  There are other differences between the traditional and Americanized debate formats, but these stand out as the key differences in style.

The format used by Intelligence Squared US is as follows:

The moderator begins by making a motion to the panel.  Recent debate motions proposed by NPR’s moderator include:  Are Obama’s Economic Policies Working Effectively , Can the U.S. Succeed in Afghanistan, Pakistan? , and Who’s To Blame For The Financial Crisis? Readers are encouraged to click those links to view the actual debates.

After hearing the motion, but before the panelists begin their debate, the audience is polled using hand-held devices as to whether they support, are opposed to, or are undecided about the motion.  The results are tallied and revealed later.

The NPR debate is divided into three rounds with proponents of the issue on one panel and opponents on the other panel.  In Round 1, the debaters each make opening statements, usually lasting 7 minutes each.   If this format were to be used in final-stage presidential debates, the time allotment would necessarily be greatly extended because there would only be two candidates.  In any case, the moderator’s role at this point is to watch the clock to ensure that each debater gets equal time to speak.

Once all opening statements have been made, the moderator reveals the results of the audience’s vote preceding the debate.

Round 2 begins with the moderator picking up on one of the debater’s remarks, and asking an opponent whether he agrees or disagrees with the premise.  Thereafter, the debaters go head to head, asking questions of each other.  Again, the moderator’s role is simply to ensure that each person gets equal time.  The moderator may ask further questions, but generally the opponents control most of the discussion during this round.  However, at a set point in time, the moderator invites the audience to ask questions of the debaters.  Members of the audience raise their hands if they have a question, and then the moderator singles out an individual to approach the microphone.  If the questioner is a member of the media, they are instructed to say so up front.  Questioners are also instructed to avoid making speeches, and to ask questions directly related to the motion under debate.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t, so it’s the moderator’s job to cut the questioner off if he or she doesn’t comply with the rules.

In the final Round 3, debaters make their closing arguments within an alloted time frame.  When all have finished their statements, the audience is polled again to see if their views have altered after listening to the arguments.  This determines who won the debate.

As you can see from the Oxford-style format used by NPR, the moderator plays a truly minimalist role.  He or she is not as much in the spotlight as the moderators we now use.  Furthermore, the debaters are given more time to analyze a complex issue, and greater latitude to challenge their opponents.  Also, very importantly, the audience is part of the debate process.

An Oxford-style debate format would probably not appeal to a weak political candidate, especially if that individual has been heavily managed by political operatives to hide his or her flaws from the public, and even more so if a fawning media overlooked his or her lack of experience and competence during a campaign. In contrast, a candidate who has a great breadth and depth of knowledge will be very attracted to the format because it would offer an opportunity to prove that he or she has the skills, knowledge, competence, vision and confidence that we need for an officeholder, especially if that person wants to be President of the United States.  Any candidate afraid to use this format should not be seeking elective office.  Voters should remember this weakness as a red flag against the candidate on election day.  It would be really interesting to watch a debate in which the presidential candidates were seconded by their VP candidates, and opposing sides faced off on the same stage instead of in separate debates.

From this point onward, what happens next is up to you, the reader.  If you agree that expecting political candidates to participate in an Oxford-style debate is a worthwhile idea, then you must do what you can to make this a reality.  You can begin by passing this idea around amongst your friends, family, neighbors, church groups, clubs, and any other way you can imagine.  Write editorials or letters to the editor.  Contact the Commission on Presidential Debates .  Most importantly, whether by phone, fax or letter, let political candidates know that this is the kind of debate format that you, the voter, want to see, and that any candidate who spurns the idea will not be taken seriously.

If this format had been used in the late-stage presidential debates of 2008, it’s likely that neither candidate would have impressed the audience very much, but these were the candidates we nominated in the primaries so ultimately we had to choose one of them to become President.  On the other hand, if an Oxford-style debate format had taken place amongst primary candidates, we may have had a very different election result on November 4, 2008.

This is our regressive energy future with Ken Salazar and the Democrats in charge.  All they can think of is wind and solar, as if we can run an entire country on these.  I’m convinced democrats are insane.  This is my take on their green energy policies.

Ignorance is a dangerous thing, so democrats who stand in the way of REAL energy independence drive me nuts.  This is my graphic response to indicate who the real "party of NO" is.

Click image to enlarge.

Another of my composite graphics, this one in response to Obama’s treatment of The Supreme Court judges present during his State of the Union address.  This man has no class.

Another of my composite graphics.  Click image to enlarge.

Jefferson’s Rebels:  http://jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-demonizes-banks-and-financial_28.html

The labyrinth . . . was built by Daedalus, a most skilful artificer.  It was an edifice with numberless winding passages and turnings opening into one another, and seeming to have neither beginning nor end, like the river Meander, which returns on itself, and flows now onward, now backward, in its course to the sea.  Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the favor of the king, and was shut up in a tower.  He contrived to make his escape from his prison, but could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels, and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched.   “Minos may control the land and the sea,” said Daedalus, “but not the regions of the air.  I will try that way.” So he set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus.  He wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface.  The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird.  Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blow away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers . . .

When at last the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward, and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air.  He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the lofty nest into the air.  When all was prepared for flight he said, “Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them.  Keep near me and you will be safe. ”  While he gave him these instructions and fitted the wings to his shoulders, the face of the father was wet with tears, and his hands trembled.  He kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time.  Then rising on his wings, he flew off, encouraging him to follow, and looked back from his own flight to see how his son managed his wings . . .

They passed Samos and Delos on the left and Lebynthos on the right when the boy, exulting in his career, began to leave the guidance of his companion and soar upward as if to reach heaven.  The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together, and they came off.  He fluttered with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air.  While his mouth uttered cries to his father it was submerged in the blue waters of the sea, which thenceforth was called by his name. His father cried, “Icarus, Icarus, where are you?”

On a simplistic level, you could say the moral of the story is that a child should follow a parent’s advice, but the moral, according to Diel, is psychologically more complex, with each symbol connected to a psychic function.

In this myth, the labyrinth represents man’s subconscious mind with its dark winding passages.  The father, Daedalus, symbolizes perverse intellect, because he is imprisoned within the labyrinth that he created with his technological skills.  He desires to rise above the despair found in his subconscious, so he attempts to escape from the labyrinth, but in so doing he misuses his talents again when he creates artificial wings that are not fully up to the task.  Daedalus imagines these frail feathers will elevate father and son to a higher euphoria.   His son Icarus symbolizes intellect blinded by vanity.  As a couplet of father and son, this filial relationship represents “a direct line of descent between qualities (or defects) of the soul.”  By this Diel means:

The intellect (father) has become perverted imagination (son).  He has vainly put his trust in wings that are no more than artifice; he has ceased to heed sound advice; he has gone beyond all bounds of moderation; he intends to become spirit; he is determined to reach the sun.  This is the final and decisive state in the rebellion of psychic life, it is not surprising that the dream of flight is typical.  But it is most particularly the dream of the neurotic person whose illness consists precisely in wanting, but being unable to achieve spiritualization:  symbolically, in being unable to fly.

This dream-flight is the expression of vanity:  the neurotic individual finding satisfaction in his dream flight, symbolizes his real but ex
alted desire to surpass himself . . . However, all exalted desire turns easily into anguish, and vanity into guiltiness.  Thus in dreams, flight is frequently thwarted by insuperable obstacles:  an accurate expression of what is going on in the psyche of the neurotic person. The desire for elevation and its fulfillment in dreams change into the anguish of falling and even into dreams of falling (this is the symbolic expression of actual experience, of rue setbacks, which are the inescapable consequences of a faulty attitude towards real life).  The dream of flying becomes a nightmare.

It is similarly symbolic that Barack Obama’s exaltation into the political arena began when he published his book “Dreams From My Father ”.  Not only does his story have a connection to a father of perverse intellect, but also Obama, like Icarus, has attempted to ascend from the dark labyrinth of his lonely past by developing perverse vanity (wings) to help him escape the pain of abandonment by his father and mother.  This does not mean that Barack Obama deserves pity.  Many have endured worse in their childhoods without developing vanity and artifice as a means of achieving personal success.  No, Barack Obama, has put his trust in his managers and in his oratorical skills to convey a false image of omnipotence for himself. Which begs the question, who is this man?

Barack Obama is a mythological phantasmagoria, with vain dreams of fame and power. This mortal’s past has purposely been hidden from public view .  In its place an image has been created and nurtured by a number of dark angels, including Frank Marshall Davis , Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright , Alice Palmer , George Soros , Valerie Jarrett , David Axelrod , Rahm Emanuel , David Plouffe , and the Perkins Coie law firm.  These people represent the strings and wax of Obama’s wings, which elevated him into the White House. Without these masters of puppetry, the unknown rabble rouser from Chicago would not have been elected President of the United States. Vanity inspired Obama to become complicit in their plans to hide his background in a labyrinth.  Together they are attempting to transform America into a statist’s utopia.

Like his sibling, Icarus, Obama has finally begun his political death spiral, because he is an ideologue incapable of moderating his statist’s views.  He may once again attempt to exalt himself in the public’s eye with soothing words, and give an appearance of moving to the political middle, but he won’t be able to maintain his lofty rhetoric for long.  The public is now wary.

Obama doesn’t understand the philosophical basis of moderation, referred to by the Greeks as the golden mean (the desirable middle between two extremes); he certainly does not practice bipartisanship, regardless of his rhetoric. Most certainly, Obama doesn’t agree with America’s founding constitutional principles.  His lack of understanding about economics will become one of his Achilles’ heel, and the other will be his weak and feckless approach to foreign policy.  And, finally, Obama does not agree with capitalism, which has been the heartbeat of American success.  Pluck these feathers from his wings one by one, and watch him decend into obscurity.  Already,  Obama’s feathers are falling off as his grandiose fantasies (wax) melt in the sunlight of public awareness and growing anger.

The American people who voted for Obama are finally realizing that he is a mere mortal with modest talents.  Obama is also a glib deceiver.  He dare not let people know who he really is .  Obama is perilously close to failure.

So erst with melting wax and loosen’d strings
Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings;
His scatter’d plumage danced upon the wave,
And sorrowing Mermaids deck’d his watery grave;
O’er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed,
And strew’d with crimson moss his marble bed;
Struck in their coral towers the passing bell,
And wide in ocean toll’d his echoing knell.”

Erasmus Darwin, “The Botanic Garden: a poem, in two parts,” 1807

Maybe we should also reacquaint ourselves with the story of the Greek Trojan Horse ?

(Cartoon by Erin Bonsteel . Click image to enlarge.)