Tag: byron york

Oh, @ByronYork, you made eye contact.

Never make eye contact.

…hoping to get a better look at Democrats’ small-donor technique, I finally clicked the $5 contribution box on President Obama’s email.

You’d think that would have made them happy. But no — they immediately wanted more.

First they tried to get me to increase my contribution. I declined. Then they asked that I make my contribution an automatic monthly donation. I declined. And then, when it looked like $5 was all they would get, they asked for a “tip” for the pro-Democratic fundraising group ActBlue. “We’re building an army of small dollar donors to defeat the Koch brothers and their fat checkbooks,” they said. “Your tip of 10 percent or more will help us build the next generation of our tools so the Kochs don’t have the final say.”

Continue reading Oh, @ByronYork, you made eye contact.

#rsrh I like Byron York’s stuff…

…but I have to take some umbrage at this point in an otherwise excellent piece on why the vaunted pivot to the economy is too little, too late for this administration.  While discussing the way that the President has… well, voted ‘present’… on jobs and the economy, Byron wrote:

It’s hard to overstate just how surprised Republicans have been by Obama’s performance.

I’m actually not surprised at all.  The man’s been a member of the legislative branch all his political life; he has no executive experience worth mentioning, and it shows.  Isn’t this largely why we don’t usually elect Senators President anymore? – And it’ll be a long time before we elect another one President, huh?

Moe Lane

PS: Via Hot Air Headlines.

An interesting column from Byron York.

What?  No, not this one.  Not that it isn’t interesting, or that I have anything really to add to it except that I read it, disagreed with its conclusion, and yet retained my respect for Byron York as a columnist and conservative.  We try to leave obsessive own-goal feuding to regional bloggers: like, say, South Carolina’s.  If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve been doing this sort of thing long enough to know that somebody would ask, I wouldn’t have noted it; but somebody would, so I might as well save us all valuable time.

Anyway, the interesting column that I wanted to bring up was this one:

President Obama’s home is in the same Chicago neighborhood as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.  On Saturday night, the overlapping of Obama’s and Farrakhan’s worlds made for a strange, and sometimes testy, encounter between the Secret Service, the press corps covering the president, and the paramilitary security force, the Fruit of Islam, surrounding Farrakhan.

Continue reading An interesting column from Byron York.

POTUS: Getting bored?

Again?

(H/T: @BillSTL) Nice to know that I’m not the only one who noticed this:

This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job.

He’s in his second year as president, and he’s discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can’t do everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama, and it’s prompted him to think about moving on.

Quick timeline to illustrate his problem (and it is one, for him):

  • 1996: Elected Illinois state senator
  • 2000: Ran for US House of Representatives (defeated in primary)
  • 2002: Began running for US Senate
  • 2004: Elected US Senator
  • 2006: Began running for President
  • 2008: Elected President

Twelve years from state legislator to President may indeed be ‘meteoric;’ it is also ‘impatient,’ which is an assessment that the President himself might sign off on. More from York’s article:

At a Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Day event at Washington’s Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, Obama brought up the fact that many people see him as almost preternaturally calm. “I have a confession to make,” Obama said. “There are times I’m not so calm … when progress seems too slow … when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts.”

Obama said it to be inspirational, but the fact is, in the past, that’s when he looked for a new job.

The good news is that the President’s interest in his job might rekindle if he’s given more of a challenge (if only for the novelty value). Having to face a Republican House and Senate next year would give him all the mental stimulation and focus that a person could want; and far be it from the GOP to deny the President what he truly, truly needs.

Because we’re givers that way.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.