I like the backdrop...

Who knows how the command picked who got to be up there? Are these guys the local Sailors of the Quarter, Sailors of the Year?



If ANYTHING about selecting them based on the way the look crosses your mind, then you have been poisoned by the Diversity bullies. If they were actually selected based on that.... well shame on us.

When Will the President Take Responsibility for It All?

We're nine months into the Obama administration and the economy is still in the tank, the federal government is spending 1.4 TRILLION dollars more than they collected in taxes this year, and the "strategy" in AFG is adrift. But we still hear blame being directed to the Bush administration... they gave us a the financial crisis, a deficit, nothing in Afghanistan, ad nauseum.

All the while, pursuing the government takeover of medicine in the country, because we are in a self-declared, media hyped, politically driven "crisis." Actually letting those in Congress decide decide what goes into the trough.

No ownership. No responsibility. If the economy were rebounding, the budget reasonable, the war being won...the President would rightly take the credit that his actions were having a positive effect. But none of that is happening. The President needs to own these problems, if his approach isn't working, then he needs to change.

Hmm... maybe in his view it IS all working. Manufacturing a crises so deep, only the gummit can save us?

What's the end game here?

Why is the President picking on Fox?

This administration may be many things. But they are not stupid. While their foreign policy to date has been marked by an apparent lack of long range vision, these guys know politics - and they play hardball.

Today's NY Times piece by David Carr concludes that "trading punches with cable shouters seems a bit too common" I just have a hard time believing that the White House would be playing like rank amateurs in the world of power politics.

So what is the end game? Take this quote about Fox from White House Communications Director Anita Dunn in the same article. "we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

Then here's Rahm and Axelrod today too, a report that "Both advisers made the point that Fox is not a legitimate news outlet..." quoting Axelrod as saying about Fox "...as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization."

Another site gives Rahm's quote in his "State of the Union" interview on CNN "It's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." (We heard the same comments back in 2007 from the moveon.org but that was not the White House.)

What is the difference between a legitimate news organization and not? Access is one. Is there more? Do we really want the White House telling us what speech is legitimate?

I hope not.

Why Rio Won Their Olympics Bid

For Rio, a major appeal was bringing the Olympics to South America for the first time.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said in the news conference afterward that in addition to its excellent bid, Rio had the "extra-added value of going for the first time to a continent that's never had the Games."

He also noted that Brazil helped its chances this year when it did not get the 2012 Games awarded four years ago.

"Rio remained humble," he said. "They wanted to listen, to repair their shortcomings."

Who knew that humility was one of the criteria. Do you think maybe we sent the wrong guy to plead our case?