Cold and aloof you could skate on. How about weak, feckless, and incompetent?

Our petulant, depressive, egotistical president (that's racist, that relies on old tropes of the "uppity negro") thinks that the press which fellates him daily is using too much teeth.

President Obama blames the press for creating the image that he's aloof and disconnected from the rest of Washington, insisting in a new interview that he's just more interested in spending time with his family than in exchanging pleasantries with strangers.

"My suspicion is that this whole critique has to do with the fact that I donÂ’t go to a lot of Washington parties and, as a consequence, the Washington press corps maybe just doesnÂ’t feel like IÂ’m in the mix enough with them, and they figure, well, if IÂ’m not spending time with them, I must be cold and aloof," Obama said in an interview with Time Magazine released Thursday.

Barack Obama to the MFM

I'm not mad at you. I'm just... disappointed.

Here's a reason for Obama's "aloofness:" When you are an unmitigated failure, you cannot discuss the real world, and must increasingly withdraw into a world of theory and projection only, because the facts of the real world are hostile to you.

Thus Obama cannot really engage with the world as we perceive it his speeches. He is required to feed the public an IV drip of abstractions piled upon theoretical constructs heaped upon hypothetical assertions.

His words seem removed from reality because they must be.

People sense this. He's never talking about the real world. He can't. The facts are against him so he can only speak airily of doctrine, dogma, and ipse dixit.

Reporters have a real problem wrapping their heads around this. Because they work with words themselves, and are egotistical as hell, they believe, incorrectly, that words are the most important thing.

No, tangible reality, facts that can be kicked along the beach, are the most important thing, and that reality then sharply delimits what words you can employ when speaking.

Words Obama can't use: Success, growth, prosperity, plunging unemployment, factory openings, fury of new-home starts, expanding investment,growing middle class, increasing wages, security.

Why did Reagan, and then Bill Clinton, connect with people? It wasn't all about charm. It was also the content of their communications. Reagan could speak of it being Morning in America Again, because it was. Clinton could speak of 4% unemployment, because he had that (briefly).

They could talk about how great people had it.

Obama? He can only tell you that in four years time, his doctrine says things should be getting better.

The future is an abstraction, doctrine is an abstraction, a projection is an abstraction.

Grow up, media. Shoveling words around isn't that goddamned hard or noble. Check your assumptions that words are all.

Just because that's the only thing in your skill-set doesn't mean that's the only thing that counts.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (194)
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Eyebrows raised.

In advance of President Barack Obama’s visit to Walt Disney World to announce new tourism initiatives, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney ridiculed the trip as another stop in ‘”fantasyland” for the president.

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, who joined Romney on the press conference call Thursday morning, said he welcomed the president’s visit and the expected tourism programs but added, “he’s a day late and a few projects short.” And U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, playing off the Main Street U.S.A location of Obama’s speech, accused the president of closing down main streets everywhere.

Further thoughts on the optics of this at Hot Air. Tina Korbe notes what else he's closing down, besides the Magic Kingdom.

Video of Newt's reaction below. Do watch the ad that plays before it (assuming it's the anti-Obama ad I just saw). If it's that ad, it's a good 'un. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (210)
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Kind of interesting. A quite long article, though.

Todd Haley walked into the public relations office at Chiefs headquarters on a Thursday in early December. Four days before he was fired as the teamÂ’s coach, he wanted to talk about what life was like inside this organization. But he didnÂ’t know who else might be listening.

Looking up toward the ceiling, he darted into a back hallway before hesitating. Then he turned around, going back through a door and stopping again. Haley suspected that many rooms at the team facility were bugged so that team administrators could monitor employeesÂ’ conversations. Stopping finally in a conference room, Haley said he believed his personal cellphone, a line he used before being hired by the Chiefs in 2009, had been tampered with.

Paranoid? The Chiefs have adamantly denied that they tap phones or listen in on conversations. But as the team enters another period of transition after elevating defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel last week to head coach, interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees suggest that intimidation and secrecy are among the Chiefs’ principal management styles — and that Haley wasn’t the only one with paranoid thoughts.

“When you’re mentally abused, you eventually lose it, too,” one former longtime Chiefs executive said.

...

“The level of paranoia was probably the highest that I had ever seen it anywhere,” another former high-ranking staffer said. “… If you make the wrong step, you might not be able to pay your mortgage.”

The article begins that way, then goes into a general negative account of GM Scott Pioli's background (with the Patriots, during Spygate) and penchant for secrecy. It's not until deep in the article (which is quite long) it returns to the surveillance allegations. Scan down for "common notion."

The report notes that most corporations have the capability to read employee emails, monitor phone usage, and so on. I guess what's being alleged is that there is a belief that Chiefs' management is doing so.

But in the last three years, another former staffer said, printouts of emails, some of them months old, were occasionally requested. The former employee said the belief was that the Chiefs were trying to discover who could be trusted and who couldnÂ’t, who was loyal to the cause and who was a liability. Pioli pored over former president Denny ThumÂ’s call log, a former high-ranking employee said, before Thum was asked to resign in September 2010 after 36 years with the team.

Thum declined comment when reached by telephone.

Kirsten Krug, the team’s human resources director, said that no current or former employee has shared uneasiness that conversations were monitored. Hunt said no employee, past or present, has broached this concern with him — including Haley.

But the suspicion was prevalent enough that, when some staffers wanted to speak candidly, they set appointments with coworkers to meet outside the building so they could talk face-to-face. Others, trying to skirt an impression that employees shouldnÂ’t fraternize with those from different departments, occasionally left the facility at different times, in different cars, so that team administrators wouldnÂ’t know they were having lunch together.

I guess I'm a little sensitive to this claim because, of course, I've installed Nanny-cams in all of the cobloggers' homes, and bathrooms, and packet-sniffers on all their modems. "Meet-up" is code for "detective visit."

Look, sure I could assume they're not conspiring against me, but when you assume, you make an ass of u and me. Who's loyal? Who's sniping at me in DMs?

Who's starting... his own blog?

I need to know these things.

I also need to know everyone's bathroom habits. Bathroom hygiene is a great predictor of loyalty and character.

In Other Football News: Soothie sends this vid of a Green Bay fan crying. Don't watch if you're a fan yourself. But, for everyone else, it's funny, as human misery so frequently is.

And as you've probably heard: In San Francisco, home of the football San Francisco Forty-Niners and the baseball San Francisco Giants, Joe Biden exults "The Giants are going to the Super Bowl!"

Which is terrific if you're a fan of the New York (football) Giants, who will be playing, and defeating, the San Francisco Forty-Niners this Sunday.

Update: According to Clay Matthews, Casey is right -- they did lose because of the damn sparkles she put on her nails.

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (127)
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Breaking.

During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used. In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry. Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (111)
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Read this.

Does any credibility remain?

Now PolitiFact will make its arguments. But I think that just about settles it. They are not checking "facts." The facts of the matter are that Romney was correct in saying the Air Force was smaller and older than at any time in its history, and that the Navy was smaller than it's been since 1917.

Those are facts.

But that's not the spin PolitiFact wanted.

Thanks to Drew.

Posted by: Ace at 09:50 AM | Comments (137)
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I have only seen Weasel Zipper's link as I write this, and I do not know -- at this moment-- what the NYT headline is.

However, I know they have a pattern. When there is good poll news for Democrats, they put that in the headline.

When the major finding is bad for Democrats, they look for very minor things to put in the headline, like "Most Want Campaign Finance Rules Tightened." They deliberately miss their own story in order to cocoon their liberal readers, who are apparently feeble children who must be sheltered from all adversity.

And now, that said, I'm checking the headline to see if I'm right.

Okay, they didn't do it this time. Their headline is understated -- Poll Shows Obama's Vulnerability With Swing Voters -- but at least they are concentrating on one of the key findings.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (91)
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Democrats...don't you dare call them socialists.

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding "a reasonable profit." It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.

The bill would also seem to exclude industry representatives from the board, as it says members "shall have no financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board."

According to the bill, a windfall tax of 50 percent would be applied when the sale of oil or gas leads to a profit of between 100 percent and 102 percent of a reasonable profit. The windfall tax would jump to 75 percent when the profit is between 102 and 105 percent of a reasonable profit, and above that, the windfall tax would be 100 percent. The bill also specifies that the oil-and-gas companies, as the seller, would have to pay this tax.

The bill is sponsored by Denis Kucinich and five other House Democrats so if it gets any attention at all it will be written off as a bunch of kooks. Still this is right in line with what at least one big name Democrat thinks.
more...

Posted by: DrewM at 09:14 AM | Comments (152)
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Perry's whole rationale for staying in was rolling the dice in South Carolina, and seeing if the other Not-Romney's had some problems which would compel giving him a second look.

Well, he seems to be getting that.

So of course it's the perfect moment to drop out.

Anyway, nice speech.

"What we need Washington, is a place that's humbler. With a government that's smaller. So our people can liver freer."

Posted by: Ace at 09:02 AM | Comments (139)
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This video plays after the main interview one.

The "cancer" story has been completely debunked. Jackie Gingrich didn't have cancer. The tumor was benign.

This other claim comes from the left, seeking to mimic the first story and establish a pattern. As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong), Marianne Gingrich did not and does not have MS. She had been diagnosed with something that could, one day, become MS.

I could be wrong. That is my understanding.

So Brian Ross is peddling age-old debunked claims but doesn't have the stones to mention Vera Baker. But it's hard to get an interview with her, I guess as she's decamped to Martinique. Odd move, a DC political type moving to... Martinique.

Oh well I'm sure there's no interesting backstory here.

I mean, Brian Ross had that story and didn't report it.

Newt Gingrich has some real baggage, and I think that baggage makes him fairly unelectable. But "reporters" should not peddle debunked claims as "facts everyone knows."

Oh: Joy Behar claims that Marianne Gingrich "doesn't sound bitter."

Well. Point of reference and all, Neckfat.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (247)
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So, that happened this morning.

All I can say is if you're a Perry supporter giving Newt a second look...that queasy feeling you have? Yeah, that's normal. It goes away, eventually. Well, not totally but mostly.

[Update - Andy:]

Posted by: DrewM at 07:41 AM | Comments (316)
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