Keith Koffler at Politico

Tuesday morning, a peculiar announcement trickled out of the White House press office: President Barack Obama would be holding a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston bombings. At the White House. By himself. No press or other intruders allowed.

Except the White House photographer.

Just picture that scene for a moment. Was there a mirror involved?

That Obama assumed Americans would want an iconic photo of him privately mourning the victims of the bombings was emblematic of a kind of hubris that has enveloped the president and his White House as the president commences his second term.

Hubris in a leader is an obnoxious thing, leading to imperiousness in governing. And it’s also a dangerous thing for a second-term president, often spelling trouble.

Unfortunately, this president’s acts of high handedness and self-absorption have been accumulating in the past several months at a blistering pace.

Even as the nation’s workers wilted under a struggling economy and high unemployment, Obama decided to take two round excursions to Hawaii at taxpayer expense over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Just six weeks later, he jetted down to Florida for a luxury four-day golf vacation where he played with Tiger Woods. Meanwhile Michelle Obama also took another vacation, skiing in Colorado…

Read it all.

Mark Steyn

“I’m also issuing a new goal for America,” declared President Obama at his State of the Union on Tuesday. We’ll come to the particular “goal” he “issued” momentarily, but before we do, consider that formulation: Did you know the president of the United States is now in the business of “issuing goals” for his subjects to live up to?

Strange how the monarchical urge persists even in a republic two-and-a-third centuries old. Many commentators have pointed out that the modern State of the Union is in fairly obvious mimicry of the Speech from the Throne that precedes a new legislative session in British Commonwealth countries and continental monarchies, but this is to miss the key difference. When the Queen or her viceroy reads a Throne Speech in Westminster, Ottawa, or Canberra, it’s usually the work of a government with a Parliamentary majority: In other words, the stuff she’s announcing is actually going to happen. That’s why, lest any enthusiasm for this or that legislative proposal be detected, the apolitical monarch overcompensates by reading everything in as flat and unexpressive a monotone as possible. Underneath the ancient rituals — the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod getting the door of the House of Commons slammed in his face three times — it’s actually a very workmanlike affair.

The State of the Union is the opposite. The president gives a performance, extremely animatedly, head swiveling from left-side prompter to right-side prompter, continually urging action now: “Let’s start right away. We can get this done. . . . We can fix this. . . . Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get it done.” And at the end of the speech, nothing gets done, and nothing gets fixed, and, after a few days’ shadowboxing between admirers and detractors willing to pretend it’s some sort of serious legislative agenda, every single word of it is forgotten until the next one.

In that sense, like Beyoncé lip-synching the National Anthem at the inauguration, the State of the Union embodies the decay of America’s political institutions into a simulacrum of responsible government rather than the real thing, and a simulacrum ever more divorced from the real issues facing the country. “Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion,” said the president. Really? Who knew? “Now we need to finish the job.” Just one more push is all it’ll take.

What’s he on about? The annual “deficit” has been over a trillion for every year of Obama’s presidency. The cumulative deficits have, in fact (to use a quaint expression), increased the national debt by $6 trillion. Yet Obama claims Washington has “reduced the deficit” by $2.5 trillion and all we need to do is “finish the job.” Presumably this is a reference to allegedly agreed deficit reductions over the next decade, or quarter-century, or whatever. In other words, Obama has saved $2.5 trillion of Magical Fairyland money, (more…)

O’s words on the Pope’s retirement. Similar to his send off for Neil Armstrong.

“On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years. The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.”

Just seeing the headline cracked me up. If you didn’t see the Superbowl ad, see it here.

Peggy Noonan on the ass-kisser, Steve Kroft:

…Which gets us to another story involving a media figure and a media institution. I refer to Steve Kroft’s interview, on “60 Minutes,” with Barack Obama and departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That made a big impression too. It didn’t remind us of a style or approach for which we feel nostalgia, but one about which we are feeling increased apprehension, and that is the mainstream media fawn-a-thon toward the current president.

The Kroft interview was a truly scandalous example of the genre. It was so soft, so dazzled, so supportive, so embarrassing. And it was that way from the beginning, when Mr. Kroft breathlessly noted, “The White House granted us 30 minutes.” Granted. Like kings.

What followed was a steady, targeted barrage of softballs. “Why did you want to do this together, a joint interview?” Because, said the president, she’s been one of the best secretaries of state ever, and theirs has been one of the greatest collaborations in history. Also, “I’m gonna miss her.” No reading of the tea leaves here, pressed Mr. Kroft. We don’t have tea here, Hillary laughed.

Throughout the president and the secretary sat closely, shoulder to shoulder, leaning into each other, nodding as the other spoke, praising each other in a way that praised themselves. I don’t blame them for doing propaganda—that’s what White Houses do. But it’s hard not blaming Mr. Kroft and “60 Minutes” for being part of it.

Why did you want her as secretary of state? Mr. Kroft asked. Because she’s so wonderful, the president more or less responded, and not unlike me in the profundity of her seriousness.

Mr. Kroft noted that she had to be talked into taking the job. Mrs. Clinton said yes, she’d exhausted herself selflessly working to elect Mr. Obama in ‘08, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take on a cabinet position. But he’s so persuasive!

The president nodded, smiling. He noted that Mrs. Clinton travelled around the world carrying his forceful yet calibrated message.

How would you characterize your relationship right now?” asked Mr. Kroft, the intrepid reporter. Hillary answered, “Very warm, close, I think there’s a sense of understanding that doesn’t even take words . . . a bond.”Mr. Kroft said he’d “spare you reading what was said” during the heated 2008 Democratic primary battles. And boy, did he spare them.

How did they overcome the tensions and hard words of that battle? “We’re professionals,” said Hillary.

“What do you think the biggest success has been, foreign-policy (more…)

Dear Obama, nothing seems to be too trivial for you to involve the government.

So, in the spirit of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” I beseech you to fix  these issues via executive order.

• Many DVDs don’t let you skip the previews. And Sony Pictures makes people with Blu-Ray players sit through a commercial for Blu-Ray players! Fix that.
• Men’s dress shirts used to come in fixed sleeve lengths. Now they’re 32-33, 37-38 etc. This is fraud because a sleeve cannot be two lengths. Fix that.
• No more Java updates, please.
• Getting stuck at a red light next to some jerk playing his stereo with mega-bass can jostle one’s innards. Make it legal to cut the tire valve stems of these idiots. (Yes, I know brain addled folk are more likely to vote Democrat, but put the nation first for a change.)
• Eye glass frames are too expensive. If Costco can sell three pair of reading glasses for $18, why should one set of frames start at $60?
• Make sure hot dogs and buns are packaged in equal numbers.
• Sports analysts yap too much to make obvious points. Limit them to a fixed number of syllables per game (like Twitter). When they’ve used up their limit, their mic goes dead.
• Parents of brats should pay a tax surcharge. The little monsters they unleash on society cost us plenty, so it’s entirely fair.
• Death penalty for telemarketers who violate the Do Not Call list.

Iowahawk

In response to Our Father, who art in the White House:

When I think about it, Barack Obama does remind me of my dad as I was growing up:

• He comes up with confusing arbitrary rules that I’m not suppose to question.
• He expects me to do my chores with no backtalk.
• He likes to criticize how I drive, eat, and spend my money.
• He’s not a big believer in Democracy.

One difference, though: I don’t recall paying my dad an allowance.

His words, yes. Alas many of his deeds are written with indelible ink.

Ramesh Ponnuru

The world will little note nor long remember anything President Barack Obama said in his second inaugural address; still less will it remember any of the gushing encomiums his admirers in the press reliably produce, comparing him variously to Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Jesus.

Obama said that developing “sustainable-energy sources” is “what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.” Does anyone believe that in a week anyone will find that an arresting and compelling thought? Or credit it for being a thought at all?

The president presented the familiar progressive story of the American founding and our subsequent history. The Constitution doesn’t make the protection of a fixed set of rights from ever-changing threats the primary task of government; it sets us forth on a “journey” to destinations unknown but ever more pleasant.

During the last year, for example, the president purports to have reached the conclusion that our founding ideals mean that governments should recognize same-sex marriage. The force of his argument will ultimately, and quickly, overwhelm his current position, that states should be allowed not to recognize those marriages. It will be another step on the journey. Being a progressive means never having to be trustworthy.

We Americans, in the president’s telling, have continually “discovered” the need for ever-larger government while conveniently retaining all of our skepticism of central authority and celebration of private initiative. And a lucky thing it is that we keep enlarging government, since the alternative is apparently the end of all large-scale enterprise: “No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”

We cannot “treat name-calling as reasoned debate,” Obama said, in a speech made possible by a campaign that described his opponent as seeking to ship jobs overseas, oppress rape victims and spread cancer.

Yes he can … overcome strawmen.

Emily Yoffe at Slate busts Obama for his self-centered eulogy of Sen. Daniel Inouye.

Obama is setting new lows for cheesy campaign crap. The latest is a new flag, yours for only $35.

Cute, eh? But as various conservatives have noted, it eerily evokes the bloody hand prints on the consulate walls in Benghazi. Via Instapundit.

You can hear him inflating his slim-to-none experience. Given his history, one wonders how many Senate committee meetings he even bothered to attend.

But that’s okay, because Barack is here.

A sand sculpture in uptown Charlotte, NC. Will MSNBC find this racist? After all, it links Obama with dirt.

Gullyborg comments:

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is OBAMANDIAS, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

How does Obama honor Neil Armstrong? With a photo of himself.

Jim Treacher notes:

Sure, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. But only to tidy it up, so that one day it would be a suitable resting place for Obama’s kingly gaze.

Hat tip to Sooper Mexican, who notes that this is a stock image from last April. That’s how Team Obama thinks: “Hey, we got any pictures of the boss looking at the moon? Any way we can make this all about him?” And that attitude starts at the top.

This is an actual screen grab, not a fake.

In a piece in the New Yorker about campaign fundraising that reads like one long whine about how the GOP has an unfair advantage, there is this:

… Michelle and Barack shared an early conviction that the gap between the rich and the poor had less to do with hard work and merit than with “opportunity, power, access and wealth.” Obama continues to see economic success as the result of many factors besides individual effort, and, consequently, he may be less awed by wealth than others.

In other words, you didn’t build that. You got lucky.

The other big takeaway from the article is that Obama is a stiff, a man who doesn’t really like people all that much, even the big donors (especially them!) who made his rise possible.

Because he’s never managed the human side of fundraising, like saying thank you, many of his previous backers are holding back this election.

What’s amusing is that four years ago Obama broke his word about honoring spending limits. As he raised more and more money, the media gleefully reported the gushing influx of cash, as if it confirmed his greatness.

Now money is dirty.

First Obama added footnotes (about himself, natch) to the presidential biographies on the White House website. Now his State Department is following suit.

James Roberts in the WSJ:

Of all the cyber-pools into which a modern-day Narcissus might gaze, surely the least likely would be the State Department’s long-running series of “Background Notes” on foreign countries. Yet in recent months, the Obama administration has taken to transforming these documents from straightforward reference items into PR puff sheets for the president.

About a third of the old notes have been converted into new “Fact Sheets” since the switchover began in May. How do they stack up? They’re Fact Sheets short on facts and long on the visits, programs and pronouncements of a certain president. Call them brag sheets.

Compare the nearly 1,200-word Fact Sheet published last week by the U.S. Embassy in Brazil with the last Background Note written during the George W. Bush administration. The 4,100-word Bush document was full of information and statistics about Brazil—that it’s a constitutional federal republic, for example, with 196 million people of whom 74% are Roman Catholic, and annual economic output of nearly $2 trillion. The section on U.S.-Brazil relations was 300 words long, or 7% of the total.

By contrast, 70% (or 830 words) of the new Brazil Fact Sheet is dedicated to U.S.-Brazilian relations—and most of that either discusses President Obama directly or in the context of the educational, scientific and cultural programs he launched during a March 2011 visit to the country…

Such boasting is the mark of a deeply insecure man.

Oh, ick!

She was an attorney at a big Chicago law firm. He was a Harvard Law student who landed a job there as a summer associate. He was immediately smitten. She wasn’t so sure. But he won her over, and the couple sealed their budding romance with a kiss at the Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Hyde Park.

So goes the story of how Michelle and Barack Obama fell in love in 1989. And on Wednesday, a historical marker went up at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and 53rd Street noting the exact location where the couple had their first smooch.

A quote from President Obama, taken from an interview published in “O, The Oprah Magazine” in February 2007, is inscribed beneath an embedded photo of the couple.

“On our first date, I treated her to the finest ice cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate.”

As landscapers added the finishing touches, placing orange impatiens around the boulder placed in a flower bed near the entrance of the Dorchester Commons shopping center, curious residents trickled by to snap pictures.

The 3,000-pound granite boulder, commissioned by the owners of Dorchester Commons, was 2 1/2 years in the making, according to Jonelle Kearney, a spokeswoman for Mid-America Asset Management, which manages the shopping center. She said the idea came about after several queries from visitors.

“It’s a marker for the community, for posterity and tourism, too,” she said.

If I lived nearby and had a male dog, well…

Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot

Place this one in the category of, “Oh, he’s just so farshtunken perfect, isn’t he?”

In the meeting, Obama reportedly boasted about his knowledge of Judaism, telling the leaders that he thinks he knows more “about Judaism” than all past presidents. He said he gained this knowledge of Judaism from reading.

We’ve heard the jokes about how often Obama likes to tout his actions as unprecedented. (Politico noticed way back in November 2009 that “Obama has relied on ‘unprecedented’ in more than 90 instances, using the word at least 129 times in everything from major addresses to small speeches, statements, memorandums and proclamations.)”

He says he’s among the top four presidents. Biden says the bin Laden mission was the most audacious military plan in 500 years. Everything is the biggest, the best, the grandest, the newest, the smartest . . . why does this guy not get along with Donald Trump again?

It must be nice — or blinding — to walk through life constantly telling yourself and others — and hearing others say — that you’re the best at everything. All the time.

As I mentioned yesterday, he assures us that even his humility is “profound.”

Because I’d hate for him to have to just make do with mere garden-variety humility.

Ed Rogers in the WaPo.

The left has a decision to make: Is it going to try to repackage the starry-eyed romance and dreamy magic of Barack Obama from four years ago or build a rationale for his reelection based on lessons learned and a plausible critique of the president’s performance in office. Perhaps it will need to acknowledge that the idolization of Obama was a one-time phenomena and that voters, desperate for some results, will be impatient with proselytizing from the Obama camp.

A good test is approaching. Next Monday, June 4, will be the four-year anniversary of the speech candidate Obama gave celebrating his delegate count, which would make him the certain Democrat nominee. He took the occasion to state what he thought his presidency foretold. Of his own nomination victory, Obama said, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” He let others really lay it on thick. You would think the retrospective absurdity of this quote would make liberals a little cautious, if not embarrassed, and cause them to rethink how they enabled Obama. We will see how this is hidden or celebrated in the next few days.

Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times, suggests the left is going to double-down on the theme of Obama as the chosen one and his followers as enlightened. Bruni appears to be willing to strain even harder for Obama in 2012 by neglecting to find anything particularly admirable about Mitt Romney while completely refreshing the Obama myth. He never hints that the reality of electing a president who was a little-accomplished state senator, unknown community organizer and high school stoner has produced some disappointments and required plenty of on-the-job training. You have to read it to get the full dose, but among other things, Bruni says of Obama, “He still personifies the hope that we might evolve into the colorblind, fair-minded country that many of us want. His own saga taps into the larger story of this country’s fitful unfinished progress toward its stated ideal of equal opportunity.”

Like other liberals, Bruni credits Obama’s charmed life so far as being “his journey.” Conversely, he is not only condescending to Mitt Romney but finds fault with him, saying, “He hasn’t succeeded in rummaging through his biography for the sorts of broadly inspirational chapters that can help a candidate bond with voters.” He states that Romney, like Bush, is “another child of privilege and political scion.” Bruni goes on to say that Romney “seems congenitally closed-off and palpably awkward about transforming the personal into the political.” As if “rummaging (more…)

Jim Geraghty

New York magazine analyzes the president’s reelection campaign:

Thus, to a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear. For many Democrats, this is just fine and dandy, for they believe that in the Romney-Republican agenda there is plenty to be scared of. For others in the party in both politics and business, however, the new Obama posture is cause for concern. From the gay-­marriage decision to the onslaught on Bain, they see the president and his team as coming across as too divisive, too conventional, and too nakedly political, putting at risk Obama’s greatest asset — his likability — with the voters in the middle of the electorate who will ultimately decide his fate.

Whichever side is right, one thing is undeniable. For anyone still starry-eyed about Obama, the months ahead will provide a bracing revelation about what he truly is: not a savior, not a saint, not a man above the fray, but a brass-knuckled, pipe-hitting, red-in-tooth-and-claw brawler determined to do what is necessary to stay in power — in other words, a politician.

Three questions: First, is anyone still starry-eyed about Obama? Two, if you’re still starry-eyed at this point, with the results he has generated, would a nasty, negative campaign really be what removes the stars from your eyes? And third . . . considering that a significant number of us never saw Obama as a savior and a saint, and always argued that he was a ruthless politician . . . wouldn’t it behoove the bright minds at New York magazine to acknowledge we were right?

Obama promised $7,000,000 new jobs in 2008.

Click here for six more videos of Obama making the same promise.

…after news broke that Obama has “hacked” the White House website to promote himself in the bios of past presidents.

The speed of satire today is astonishing.

Plenty more of President Obama Zelig Obama here.

And speaking of Microsoft, there’s this nugget, from an editorial in the WSJ:

“When I hear people talk about the free enterprise system and entrepreneurship, I try to remind them, you know, all of us made that investment in Darpa [the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] that helped to get the Internet started,” said Mr. Obama. “So there’s no Facebook, there’s no Microsoft, there’s no Google if we hadn’t made this common investment in our future.”

Microsoft—a product of the Internet? That may surprise Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who founded the software company in 1975. The company didn’t introduce its first Internet browser for another 20 years, and in the meantime it became the dominant computer software company long before the Internet became economically important. The irony of Mr. Obama’s error is that for much of Microsoft’s history the Internet was seen as a threat to its desktop dominance.

There’s no doubt that Darpa has done many good things, but the point Mr. Obama misses is that Darpa is engaged in funding research. This is a proper role for government, especially on national defense. But Darpa does not attempt to commercialize products. Facebook and Google, like Apple and Microsoft, were founded by private investors.

The President likes to elide that distinction between government funding for basic research and commercialization, which is how his Administration lost so much money on stinkers like Solyndra.

…not much, but Obama has control over the White House website. Dig into the presidential biographies of past presidents and who do you find mentioned in those bios?

Yep, Obama!

(via Michael Medved on the radio)

From the Calvin Coolidge page:

Did you know?

• On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).   President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

From the Ronald Reagan page:

Did you know?

• President Reagan designated Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday; today the Obama Administration honors this tradition, with the First and Second Families participating in service projects on this day.
• In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

From the JFK page:

Did you know?

• President John F. Kennedy famously suggested the American people: “Ask what you can do for your country.” In 1961, the Peace Corps was created, facilitating service among citizens working toward peace in developing countries. In 2011, President Obama celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps with a Presidential Proclamation.

From the George W. Bush page:

Did you know?

• After blaming everything wrong with America on President Bush, President Obama took credit for ending the war in Iraq, even though he vehemently opposed the “surge” that cemented the victory. Then he neglected/bungled the diplomatic effort with Iraq, thus squandering our strategic leverage in the region.
• After seeing Bush’s former vice-president Dick Cheney speak out in favor of gay marriage in 2009, Obama began evolving and three years later became, according to Newsweek magazine, the first gay president.

All right — the stuff about Bush I invented.

The rest, I am sad to report, is really there. Or will be until embarrassment sets in.

Let’s hope Obama doesn’t spot his image in the Reflecting Pool or Biden might get his chance.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Ed Lasky:

Edward Klein’s new book on Barack Obama, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, is a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency — while being weighed down by a small circle of “advisers” who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House.

Klein’s book begins with a talisman-like quote uttered by Barack Obama when his recently appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tried to boost Obama’s ego by telling him, “Your legacy is going to be preventing the second Great Depression.”  To which Barack Obama responded, “That’s not enough for me.”

As all of America knows by now, Obama has aggressively sought to “fundamentally transform” America — one of the few promises he has kept from the days of 2008.  Five trillion dollars of borrowing, ObamaCare passed over the objections of the majority of Americans through legislative legerdemain and special deals made with resistant politicians, failed stimulus, green programs failing left and right as taxpayers are left holding the bag, a recovery that is the most anemic on record, an America that has been sundered by the man who promises to unite us, America weaker abroad and at home — yes, America has been fundamentally transformed.  Mission Accomplished…

Daniel Foster:

…the more I think about it, the more I think Obama’s courageous clarion call on gay marriage — in case you’ve forgotten, POTUS said in no uncertain terms that “at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think . . .” well, you get the gist — was a brilliant political stroke. Rich progs were always going to come home for the president in November, but they were going to do so reluctantly, and worse yet, stingily.

Cue Obama, who understands these people better than they understand themselves. The campaign has been guarding this gay marriage thing like the last clasp on the massive brassiere of its base mobilization strategy, and they weren’t about to give it up without some commitment.

Sure enough, the president empties the dictionary of qualifiers en route to articulating a legislatively inert .5 degree modulation of his position on gay marriage that relies on, of all things, federalism as an escape clause, and a tear glistens in the eyes of every man, woman, and child in Hopeychangeworld. 2008 muscle memory kicks in, hearts swell, and wallets open. He is The One they’ve been waiting for, after all.

Obama’s path to the US Senate was paved with dirt dug up on his GOP opponent, Jack Ryan.

The Chicago Tribune successfully sued to open sealed divorce records to find dirt. Both Ryan and his ex-wife Jeri Ryan objected to their private affairs being made public, arguing it would hurt their son. Ryan was eventually so damaged he quit the race.

Keep that in mind as you read Kimberly Strassel’s column

Here’s what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent.

Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, “Keeping GOP Honest,” took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled “Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,” the post accused the eight of being “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.” Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being “litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot’s divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk’s office—which I have obtained—listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.

Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He’s found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from “Glenn Simpson.” That’s the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a D.C. company that performs private investigative work.

The website for that company, Fusion GPS, describes itself as providing “strategic intelligence,” with expertise in areas like “politics.” That’s a polite way of saying “opposition research.”

When I called Fusion’s main number and asked to speak to Michael Wolf, a man said Mr. Wolf wasn’t in the office that day but he’d be in this coming Monday. When I reached Mr. Wolf on his private cell, he confirmed he had until recently worked at the Senate.

When I asked what his interest was in Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records, he hesitated, then said he didn’t want to talk about that. When I asked what his relationship was with Fusion, he hesitated again and said he had “no comment.” “It’s a legal thing,” he added.

Fusion dodged my calls, so I couldn’t ask who was paying it to troll through Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records. Mr. Simpson finally sent an email stating: “Frank VanderSloot is a figure of (more…)

…or should I say, “who” they’re fighting for: Obama the Orator:

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

Did he mean “behest?”

Nah, with his ego he meant what he said. It’s all about him.

Our heroic president lines up a shot the day before Bin Laden was killed by Seal Team 6.

The actual men who risked their lives (not some bad political fallout) are not happy with Obama’s repeated self congratulation:

Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.

‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice – it was a broader team effort.’

Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that MR Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’

Mr Obama has faced criticism even from allies about his decision to make a campaign ad about the bin Laden raid. Arianna Huffington, an outspoken liberal who runs the left-leaning Huffington Post website, roundly condemned it.

She told CBS: ‘We should celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It’s one thing to have an NBC special from the Situation Room… all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.’

My guess is Obama has more despicable left in him.

The man so many worship for his supposed idealism, is the most hard-nosed, driven and dirty politician president we’ve had in a long while.

Kimberly Strassel in the WSJ

Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.

Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for “betting against America,” and accuses you of having a “less-than-reputable” record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.

Are you worried?

Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled “Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney’s donors.” In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having “less-than-reputable records,” the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that “quite a few” have also been “on the wrong side of the law” and profiting at “the expense of so many Americans.”

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having “outsourced” jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a “lobbyist”) and Thomas O’Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a “bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

These are wealthy individuals, to be sure, but private citizens nonetheless. Not one holds elected office. Not one is a criminal. Not one has the barest fraction of the position or the power of the U.S. leader who is publicly assaulting them…

Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot

It appears one of the great challenges that President Obama has had to overcome in office is that no one around him is as good at their job as he is.

From Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas, page 66:

Obama had always had a high estimation of his ability to cast and run his operation. When David Plouffe, his campaign manager, first interviewed for a job with him in 2006, the senator gave him a warning: “I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to give up control when that’s all I’ve known.” Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

This is not some long-ago sentiment, or momentary lapse into egoism. Michelle Obama declared at a Democratic-party fundraiser in California last June:

“He reads every word, every memo, so he is better prepared than the people briefing him,” she said. “This man doesn’t take a day off.”

At the time, I noted it’s a good thing that the Central Intelligence Agency is full of classy, dignified, professional people; otherwise, tomorrow’s President’s Daily Brief might consist of, “Well, since you’re so well prepared, figure it out yourself, smarty-pants.”

Also note that “the man doesn’t take a day off.” Correct, but we can all breathe easier knowing he found time for golf for eleven straight weekends.

…and derision for the throngs who got goose flesh and who cheered him on. Embarassing.