Flyover Country

Boy.. busy news day!

Here’s three stories that are interesting..   First two stories from the Times Online.

Story 1:

The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war.

The EU threatened to retaliate if the US Congress went ahead with sweeping measures in its $800 billion (£554 billion) stimulus plan to restrict spending to American goods and services.

Gordon Brown was caught in the crossfire as John Bruton, the EU Ambassador to Washington, said that “history has shown us” where the closing of markets leads — a clear reference to the Depression of the 1930s, triggered by US protectionist laws.

Last night Mr Obama gave a strong signal that he would remove the most provocative passages from the Bill.

So, Mr. President, what is more important, stimulating the American economy or making your European friends happy?

Story 2:

President Obama will convene the most ambitious arms reduction talks with Russia for a generation, aiming to slash each country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 80 per cent.

The radical treaty would cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000 each, The Times has learnt. Key to the initiative is a review of the Bush Administration’s plan for a US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, a project fiercely opposed by Moscow.

Mr Obama is to establish a non-proliferation office at the White House to oversee the talks, expected to be headed by Gary Samore, a non-proliferation negotiator in the Clinton Administration. The talks will be driven by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

I can hear Putin snickering from here, “Sure, I’ll not only destroy 80 percent, I’ll destroy them all.  You can trust me! (snicker, snicker)”

And finally, from the “Mind Your Own Business” department (from the Financial Times):

India has warned US President Barack Obama that he risks “barking up the wrong tree” if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

MK Narayanan, India’s national security advisor, said that the new US administration was in danger of dredging up out of date Clinton administration-era strategies in a bid to bring about improved ties between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

If trying to settle the Kashmir dispute causes Pakistan and India to nuke each other, where will Dell get their tech support people from?

Once again from our friends at breitbart.com:

Despite the tax problems faced by high-level nominees, and the exceptions made to the no-lobbyists pledge, President Barack Obama’s spokesman is defending the administration’s ethical standards.Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday, “The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set.”

He’s joking, right?

I guess if you don’t count paying taxes as ethical.  I guess if you don’t count conflict of interest issues.

If hyperbole was unethical they would be the lest ethical in history on that basis alone.

Kirsten Powers is one of my favorite Democrats.  Trust me, that list is VERY short.  I think she is one of the few Democrats in today’s national political scene with a brain.  You will never see her spouting off some left-wing talking point just because she’s a Democrat.

If you don’t know Kirsten, she’s a Democrat columnist, blogger, pundit, and commentator.  I’ve seen her often on the Fox News Channel.  In the past, she was often paired with Michelle Malkin on The O’Reilly Factor with both women talking about issues from their side of the political spectrum.  I always thought while watching Kirsten in those segments, as well as others since then, that if all the Democrats were like Kirsten, conservatives would be in big trouble.

What brings this up today is that Kirsten wrote a column that was posted at the New York Post’s website.  The headline is “How Obama Blew It”.  It’s a great read.  Here are some highlights:

Obama’s toughest challenge has always been to connect with working-class swing voters. So attacking the poster child for small-town values, Sarah Palin, was a bad strategy.

No, Obama didn’t engage in the mass sneering at Palin – but he did fall into the trap of disrespecting her. When McCain chose her, the Obama campaign’s first response was to ridicule the size of her town. Then the candidate himself began referring to her as a “former mayor” when she is in fact a sitting governor.

As Kirsten points out, the Obama campaign is making a huge mistake in attacking Palin’s small town roots.  This is shows once again how Obama, and most liberals in general, show disdain for Fly Over Country.  Those of us in middle America, especially those in small towns, are not fit to shine their shoes in their opinion.  Maybe this is the source of the bitterness that drives us to cling to our guns and religion?

Since they didn’t know anything about her, they started making things up. Anything that fit the caricature of a right-wing hypocrite was thrown up with, seemingly, no fact-checking.

Or put more simply, they lied.  The funny thing about this is that when conservatives supposedly lie (i.e. WMD in Iraq) the left is all in a tizzy over it.  “GASP!  They lied!”  Newspaper headlines and manazine articles and left-wing blogs go nuts over a percieved untruth on the right.  The left can lie all they want to.

Of course you all know how to tell if a liberal is lying.  Their lips are moving.