Category Archives: Critique

Beavis (Obama) & Butthead (Steve Inskeep) Do National Public Radio (NPR)

Barack Obama, Critique, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio “interviewed” President Obama in the Oval Office. Inskeep’s interview is really a non-probing, lighthearted quiz that can be paraphrased as follows:

* So glad you were able to pass two major executive actions. Did the fact that elections had just passed liberate you to perform so liberating a service?

* I hope you continue to do the things you want to do, Mr. president. I’m with you, Bro.

* Pretend the following is a question, when in fact it is but a way for me to “cleverly” show you the degree to which I’m down with you. Here goes: Bloody Congress! How do you, Great Leader, intend to get those rube-hicks on board with your enlightened executive orders?

* Republicans are nativists. I’m so smart. We both are. (The two laugh like Beavis and Butthead.)

* Finally, and before I suggest my own flattering explanation of how wickedly smart your foreign policy is—outwitting enemies with empathy—I’m going to get really tough and give you a chance to convince me America has not been further divided racially by yourself.

* Have I told you how awesome you are for bringing the price of oil down? Consider it said.

Each and every question posed by Steve Inskeep suggests its own, most-flattering reply.

Repulsive.

Read with vomit bag handy.

Ashoka (And Mother) Mukpo’s Quest For Exotica

Africa, Canada, Critique, Healthcare, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism

OK, I’ll say it. He’s a lily white Canadian-American with the name Ashoka Mukpo. Mr. Mukpo loves Liberia almost more than life itself. This is how his family aggrandized Ashoka’s Liberian pursuits:

Mukpo was a researcher for the Sustainable Development Institute, a Liberia-based nonprofit shining light on concerns of workers in mining camps outside Monrovia. And “was into the culture. … He seemed to have a lot of passion for it.”

(CBC)

Days before his infection with Ebola became public, Mukpo was hired by NBC as a cameraman in that country. (Wasn’t he a “researcher” of sorts?)

Instead of assuming the name of his “birth father, a prominent Rhode Island doctor,” Ashoka and brother “took the name of his mother’s first husband, who founded the Shambhala Buddhism community”—upon a cursory read of this Wiki entry, Shambhala seems like a cult of sort, primed to ensnare a certain type of westerner.

The quest for exotica trumps honoring thy father.

Throughout the interview this married couple gave Sean Hannity, Mother Mukpo came across as pretentious, uppity and worse. Ashoka’s stepfather, Mitchell Levy, seemed perfectly nice; an affable fellow.

Still, Ashoka’s mother was referred to as Diana Mukpo, and not Diana Levy. The infected cameraman’s sullen mom clearly preferred to take on the name of her former husband than assume the name of the man at her side: Dr. Levy, “director of intensive care at Rhode Island Hospital.”

Oh, Ashoka Mukpo is said by the faithful to be “a tulku, the reincarnation of a Buddhist master teacher.”

“Ashoka Mukpo (center) with his mother, Diana (third from left) and birth father Mitchell Levy (far right) during a visit to Tibet in 2002. (Konchok.org)”

Panetta’s Permissible Critique Of The President

Barack Obama, Critique, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY & FORMER CIA DIRECTOR, has provided the left with a permissible critique of President Barack Obama. You just know that whatever it is that Panetta is saying about “Obola” is rather flattering when Gloria Borger, a promiscuous cheerleader for the president at CNN (and a complete idiot), takes time to plumb the Panetta critique, offered in a book, “Worthy Fights.”

Here’s what I mean (thanks, CNN, for the transcript; never stop offering it. Some of us prefer to read, not watch, news):

BORGER (voice-over): The portrait Panetta sketches of Barack Obama sometimes looks more like a professor than a president.

PANETTA: He relies on the logic of his presentation with the hope that ultimately people will embrace that logic and then do what’s right. You know what? In 50 years, my experience is, logic doesn’t work in Washington. You have to basically go after people and make them understand what they have to do. And that means you create a war room. You go after votes. You have to push people.

BORGER (on camera): So did you have a sense that the president found that distasteful or that it wasn’t something he wanted to do or was comfortable doing or —

PANETTA: I think it offended him that people would not really get serious and work on the issues. And I think, as a result of that, he just felt, how can I deal with people that simply don’t want to do the right thing for the country? Well, the reality is, if you want to govern in this country, you have to deal with people you don’t like.

[SNIP]

See what I mean?

Read “Barack Is As Thick As A Brick,” for he is. (“You Can’t Fix Stupid'” is instructive too.)

So long as one infers that the president’s misdeeds arise because he levitates above mere mortals in his idealism and intelligence—your safe. Panetta has provided people with a safe case against Obama.

Hamas, Qatar, Turkey And A Turkey Named Kerry

Critique, History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

The one “regional coalition” in the current conflict in the Middle East is said to consist of Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, the UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and … the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas. The other, rival coalition is purported to be the “Save Hamas Squad.” It comprises “US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, “a brace of European ministers,” as well as Qatar and Turkey.

An interesting and certainly analytical glimpse of the dynamic forces at play in the current Middle-Eastern conflict is offered by DEBKAfile (and, naturally, not by the American press). Read it.

America thinks that it must and can be a decisive force for good in the Middle East. However, the region’s players march to their own drumbeat. In Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923, Efraim and Inari Karsh marshal prodigious scholarship to show that, “Twentieth-century Middle Eastern history is essentially the culmination of long-standing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior rather than an externally imposed dictate.” The trend continues.

And then there are the victims of the power players.