As IF Times

link What Happened to Obama’s Passion? – NYTimes.com.

Even after 3 years and ample evidence from which to draw some rational conclusions, people like Drew Westen are still delusional.  If you read through Westen’s opinions, the answer to the query posed in his headline is embedded within, but despite this, he is unable to make the connection with reality.  It’s as if he knows it, but can’t admit it due to ideological hard wiring.

While he may ask “what happened to Obama’s passion?”, the realists who were not drawn into Obama’s soaring rhetoric already know what happened to it.  It never existed.  It existed only in the minds of the people who,  as Weston describes it, would rather hear stirring stories than face harsh facts.  Westen acknowledges that the vast populace can be taken in by soothing rhetoric and statements that have no basis in reality.  It’s not Obama that has lost his passion.  It’s that reality has set upon the vast populace who naively bought the Pied Piper-like messages offered by his campaign.  As a politician, he has been as masterful as anyone has  ever been in American history,  aided by a complicit and adoring media.

History tells us that we should be skeptical of all politicians, whatever their affiliation. When a nation adopts a Messianic figure like Obama without paying any regard to his complete lack of accomplishments but solely on his ability to read speeches, it is not the fault of the candidate, it is the fault of the naive public.  And of course  the media which allowed this to happen.   Certainly there’s nothing wrong with invoking touchy-feely rhetoric about world peace and equality.  But if that was the only prerequisite for leading a nation, any of the last dozen or so Miss Americas could have been  just as eligible.

Although Westen claims to be an educated professional, he adamantly clings to the cliche notions that it is the usual villains of Wall Street, big business and of course the Republicans that are to blame for all malaise that affects the nation.  Now, with the brunt of reality facing them, delusionals like Westen blame Obama for changing when in fact it has been their own fairyland worldviews that are flawed.

As long as we have enlightened people like Westen avoiding reality, what chance is there that the plain folk will be able to make sense of what to do?  My hope is, plenty.  I’d be willing to bet that the drape of mass delusion that has shrouded a huge contingent of American voters has lifted.  My bet is that the preposterous statements that emanate out of the White House which are completely incongruent with reality, will start to fall on skeptical ears.  A few articles back, I made mention of the similarity of what’s happening in US politics now with the premise of  the old 1962 movie, The Music Man, which depicts a town of rubes taken in by the optimistic promises of  a hustling salesman.  The moral from the movie is the same as the moral we can apply to real life:  The only real changes come from within, not through someone else.  Westen should absorb that instead of the fairy tales he’s used to.  Enough of the storytelling already.

link Whos the woman who fought Murdochs foam foe? – CBS News.

Well it’s about time.  One of the trademark antics of the left has been to ‘pie’ people they don’t agree with, typically those on the ‘right’.  How a guy with a pie plate full of shaving cream could have passed through security at a high level gathering of British MP’s  is another issue.  Must have not been on the checklist of dangerous items.  Pie plate full of shaving cream, “not on the danger list, carry on, pip pip”.

Rupert Murdoch’s wife can be seen in the video executing an overhead smash on the assailant and then turning the pie back on him.  Good on her. For the longest time, idiots from the fringe left have staged all kinds of juvenile stunts on speakers they don’t agree with in the mistaken opinion that the ‘punked’ factor will curry favour with their peer group…other idiots.   As the old saying goes, it’s all fun until someone loses an eye and while this has thankfully not happened, the real reason this stuff still occurs at all is because there has been no consequence to this behaviour.   Being hauled away by security people and getting a stern scolding  is not exactly a consequence.  What are they, 12? Getting slapped around a bit for perpetrating an assault on another  is a much more tangible risk to dufus behavior.  

If the perpetrators of the left’s puerile antics were exposed to instant consequences of their actions, it could get very amusing before it all ends.  What if the perps were made to eat soap, or write lines of penance on a blackboard 200 times, or wear a dunce cap?  What if their mothers dragged them out by their ears in front of a live studio audience?  In the best circumstance, a black trapezoid labeled “5 tons” would drop on them instantly a la Wile E Coyote.

If one cares to go back and do some research, it is never the normal people that perpetrate juvenile publicity stunts to shut people up. You never see someone dumping a bucket of offal on Michael Moore during his blatherings.  Bill Maher is free to spew any and all manner of vulgar rhetoric without anyone giving him a deserved bitch slap.  Now that I think about it, with all the ad-hominem, misogynist barbs hurled by Maher at Sarah Palin over the years, it’s a wonder Todd Palin doesn’t invite Maher up to Alaska for a boys’ weekend….just to chew the fat.