What do Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and BP have in common? Aside from the fact that they’re both Democratic Party supporters.
Or they were. Gen. McChrystal is a liberal who voted for President Obama and banned Fox News from his headquarters TV. That may at least partly explain how he became the first U.S. general to be lost in combat while giving an interview to Rolling Stone. They’ll be studying that one in war colleges around the world for decades. The managers of BP were unable to vote for Mr. Obama, being, as we now know, the most sinister, duplicitous bunch of shifty Brits to pitch up offshore since the War of 1812. But, in their “Beyond Petroleum” marketing and beyond, they signed on to every modish nostrum of the eco-left. Their recently retired chairman, Lord John Browne, was one of the most prominent promoters of “cap-and-trade.” BP was the Democrats’ favorite oil company. It was to Mr. Obama what TotalFinaElf was to Saddam Hussein.
But what do Gen. McChrystal’s and BP’s defenestrations tell us about the president of the United States? Mr. Obama is a thin-skinned man and, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, White House aides indicated that what angered the president most about the Rolling Stone piece was “a McChrystal aide saying that McChrystal had thought that Obama was not engaged when they first met last year.” If finding Mr. Obama “not engaged” is now a firing offense, who among us is safe?
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Steyn says Obama zones out :” From Moscow to Tehran to the caves of Waziristan, our enemies got the message a lot earlier – and long ago figured out the rules of unengagement.”
Obama was unengaged in the military, hardly ever speaking to McChrystal who got so isolated he decided to talk to Rolling Stone. Obama was unengaged in ObamaCare, leaving it to Ponzi Pelosi. And now he’s unengaged in the financial system.
Government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the epicenter of the subprime financial meltdown. Yet they remain a multibillion dollar drain on the U.S. Treasury, and largely untouched by Obama’s latest 2000 page bill. The same perps behind government intervention into the housing-mortgage business, Bwaney Fwank and Chris Dodd remain the foxes in the hen house; that they were behind the cause and are now behind the cure is mindboggling. Chris Dodd was weeping but it is “we the people” who should be weeping:
“It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here,” said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”
This is amazing. He admits he doesn’t know “how this will work”. It’s like ObamaCare. Is Dodd drunk? Drunk on Power? Senile?
The bill is undoubtedly loaded with unintended consequences that while aimed at Wall St but will ultimately hit Main St where all bills get paid. Wretchard, a very clever guy, on his Belmont Club blog prognosticates:
Some very simple things, like a cornstarch and water behave very differently under different speeds and conditions. The financial system is far, far more complicated and can be expected to throw up a surprise. Now, with the “fix” in, either all our worries are temporarily over or the next financial crisis has just been designed.
Thankyou Mark SteynThe POTUS has feet of clay – pitiful. When the US and the world are confronted by grave issues of security, economics, unrest, environmental concerns, budget deficits, etc., the Americans blindly buy the unblinking, cold statue. Cheers.
Another comment by Wretchard deserves highlighting in the context of risk and what, if any, role there for government to try and legislate away risk.
“Financial risk cannot be legislated away. Like energy, once in existence risk cannot be destroyed. It can only be moved around; assumed by someone. When it is assumed for a fee the risk transfer is called insurance. When it is assumed by the taxpayer the result is something like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae”
To take that a step further Health Care is like Fannie and Freddie. It is a risk transfer onto the backs of the same taxpayer who it deems to be protecting from risk. It’s a Ponzi game.
Risk mitigation is something that is not being discussed sufficiently by our governments. Until we start to understand that politicians cannot take the risk out of the weather, nor out of the financial system, nor Health; then we are going to continue to be deluded into giving our money to politicians like the “unengaged” Obama who has no idea how the real world functions.
#3 What a great comment and observation.