President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth

UK Telegraph "Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before. The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation. Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter. The grizzled veterans of the Democratic leadership in Congress have found Mr Obama and his team of bright young advisers a pushover."

The Max Tax: Baucus Health Bill Is More of the Same

Heritage "The President needs to lead by meeting with key leaders of both parties and seek bipartisan reform around two key themes: 1) instead of a one-size-fits-all federal solution, Congress should let the states take the lead on reform, and 2) reform the tax treatment of health insurance to give all taxpayers tax relief for purchasing private insurance and extend assistance (through spending offsets) to low-income families to purchase private insurance instead of expanding government care."

A QUESTION FROM BARACK OBAMA

Boortz "Obama wants to know the following: How do we balance our freedom with our need to "look after one another"?"...."There's another more subtle premise at work in Obama's comment. Apparently he thinks that the only way Americans will "look after one another" is through the processes of government. Private charity has always been more effective at taking care of those truly in need. It was government, not private charity, that chased the fathers out of the homes of countless welfare families."

Sunday Obamathon Turns Into Media Critique; Says Press is Perpetuating 'Rude' Behavior

NEWSBUSTERS "According to Obama, alleging he wasn't doing any "media-bashing," mentioned the three major cable news networks by name, and said they were the ones enabling the "rude" behavior that some of their on-air voices have decried by giving it so much attention."

Sources: US eyes more drone hits on terror havens

Breitbart "The White House is looking at expanding counterterror operations in Pakistan to refocus on eliminating al-Qaida instead of mounting a major military escalation in Afghanistan"

The Neglected Duty of Civic Awareness

By Chuck Colson (From 1996) "As the great reformer John Calvin once wrote: “Civil authority is a calling, not only holy and lawful before God, but also the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life of mortal men.”Let’s remember the high calling of public service so that we do not shirk our civic responsibility."

The Long Retreat

By Mark Steyn= "But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you."...."For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”"

Sunday Morning Obama @ CBS: Obama Stands Firm on CIA Investigation

Patterico.com "I doubt the 7 former CIA directors appreciate being painted as people only interested in protecting their former turf and employees. They are a bipartisan group of officials who supervised the CIA for much of the past 40 years. As stated in their letter, they are concerned this investigation will do serious damage to the CIA’s mission and its ability to work with foreign intelligence agencies."

ObamaCare and Red State Democrats

By Karl Rove "Part of Mr. Obama's problem is his language. His speech contained little new information and his tone was unpresidential. Instead of binding Americans to his cause, he called legitimate concerns "misinformation," "false," "demagoguery," "distortion" or "tall tales." Earlier in the week he declared them "lies." This was like calling people with concerns stupid, and it's not the way to win them over."

Brzezinski [from the Carter administration, incidentally] fantasizes about US shooting down Israeli planes

Rick Moran "Typical liberal. He would never dream of making war on our real enemies, only our allies."...."...I think this makes an Israeli strike on Iran even more probable. The more Obama tries to isolate Israel, the more the Israelis are made aware that they cannot depend on America anymore and must act without regard to American interests in the region.It takes a special kind of incompetence to anger your allies, appease your enemies, and leave the rest of the world looking at you with contempt. "

Reactionary Liberalism and the Peanut Narcissist

By Ralph Alter "With his strident assumption of moral superiority nd defective judgment hogging national headlines, Mr. Carter has assured that he will be able to contemplate the derision he has earned before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Once again the reactionary liberal movement has over-played its hand and thereby rendered itself and its useful idiot, Jimmy Carter, into laughing stocks. "

3 men in terror probe charged with making false statements

CNN "The alleged terrorist plot, which came to light last week after raids in New York, may have been targeting a major transportation center, like a large railroad or subway station, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday."