Friday, December 06, 2013

Sarah Palin: ‘Angry Atheists Armed with an Attorney’ Want to ‘Abort Christ from Christmas’


Mediaite.com:
Sarah Palin spoke at Liberty University on Thursday, and one of the issues she addressed was the War on Christmas™ and the “angry atheists” hell-bent on ruining the holiday for everyone else. Palin invoked the words of Founders like Thomas Jefferson, who she said despite his writings on the separation of church and state, would be up in arms against people attempting to “abort Christ from Christmas.”

Palin agreed that Jefferson’s message has been grossly distorted by atheists attempting to use him for their own agenda, and argued that the nation’s third president would, in fact, be on the side of Christians fighting to celebrate the holiday.
“Thomas Jefferson today, he would recognize those who would want to try to ignore that Jesus is the reason for the season, those who would want to try to abort Christ from Christmas. He would recognize, for the most part, these are angry atheists armed with an attorney. They are not the majority of Americans.”
She also found it to be a ridiculous double standard that somehow it’s okay for atheists to take offense at public displays of religion on government grounds, but religious people can’t get offended when they believe their holiday is being undermined. Palin concluded that people should follow Jefferson’s example and refuse to “sit down and shut up.”
RELATED:  O’Reilly Psychoanalyzes Atheists: So Much ‘Anger,’ ‘Are They That Bitter Against Religion?”

Rush Limbaugh Fires Back at ‘Phony’ Outrage Over Him Saying the Pope’s Preaching Marxism


Mediaite.com:
Rush Limbaugh caused quite a stir this past week after declaring that Pope Francis is preaching “pure Marxism.” Limbaugh fired back on his radio show Thursday, mocking the “soap opera” that always seems to plague him any time he opens his mouth.

He sighed about yet “another manufactured controversy” over his remarks and liberals trying to turn him into a “villain in this massive soap opera script.” He contrasted the over-the-top coverage of his Sandra Fluke remarks with the absolute silence over Martin Bashir‘s.

Limbaugh admitted that he’s just tired of it at this point; of people using him as a convenient punching bag whenever they discover something particularly egregious he’s said.
“I don’t like immersing myself in these contrived, phony things with these people acting like they’re so outraged by this. They’re not outraged by it.  They’re energized by what they think is another opportunity to take me out. They don’t care what I really said about the pope. That’s not the point of it. The point is, “Oh, wow!” I mean, every day they’re hoping I step in it, as they define stepping in it. So to heck with it.”
RELATED:  The pope as Marxist: Is Limbaugh right?

Detroit's Decline Didn't Have to Happen


Townhall.com:
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has ruled that Detroit, Mich., may seek to protect itself from its creditors under Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection, thus making this once proud city the largest municipality in American history to go bust. 
The city is $18 billion in the hole thanks to its debt and long-term liabilities, such as pensions it could not afford and people abandoning the city in droves, which led to an erosion of the tax base. 
It didn't have to be like this. There were signs of Detroit's decline that began as early as the 1950s, but politicians don't like telling voters "no" when it comes to government freebies and benefits. They want the votes. 
Last September, the Detroit Free Press printed an extensive analysis of the city's financial history over the past 60 years. It found that instead of making difficult economic and political decisions, which might have strengthened Detroit's financial foundation, "...amid a huge exodus of residents, plummeting tax revenues and skyrocketing home abandonment, Detroit's leaders engaged in a billion-dollar borrowing binge, created new taxes and failed to cut expenses when they needed to. 
"Simultaneously," reported the newspaper, these leaders "gifted workers and retirees with generous bonuses. And under pressure from unions and, sometimes, arbitrators, they failed to cut health care benefits -- saddling the city with staggering costs that today threaten the safety and quality of life of people who live here." 
Most of the recent mayors of Detroit have been Democrats. Some have gone to jail on corruption charges, but they don't get the same level of attention from the national media as they might have had they been Republicans. Stirring the political pot to avoid perpetual one-party rule would have been a good way to reduce corruption and the problems Detroit has experienced under Democrats. 
Washington, D.C., which has had only Democratic mayors and a majority Democratic city council since the 1960s when Congress gave residents the right to vote for their local leaders, is another city with several corrupt politicians. As in Detroit, Washington, D.C.'s policies appear to have ensured a permanent underclass Democrats can count on for votes, as long as government handouts keep coming. 
While there have been periods of economic growth in Detroit over the past 50 years, politicians did not use the money wisely and many opportunities to alter the city's downward trajectory toward more benefits, higher debt and the discredited notion that constantly raising taxes would stop the bleeding were missed. 
The one flaw in the Free Press analysis is this line: "Although no one could see it at the time, Detroit's insolvency was guaranteed." It isn't that no one could see insolvency coming; it is that they refused to do so. Their attitude was "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." And so Detroit has succumbed to financial ruin. 
There is a grand lesson here not only for other urban cities faced with similar problems, but for states and especially the federal government that don't want to deny anyone anything, especially in an election year. The lesson is an obvious one, buried deep in our Puritan ethos: You can't spend more than you take in, as though tomorrow will never come. If you do, your tomorrow might just look a lot like Detroit's. 
Last summer, Beyonce visited Detroit where she performed a live concert and recorded a video reminding the city of its illustrious past. The song she sang in the video was Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" while behind her a huge neon sign read "Nothing Stops Detroit."
RELATED:  Federal judge lets Detroit move forward with largest bankruptcy in US history

Chris Matthews to Barack Obama: 'Everyone Knows' Republicans Want to Stop Minorities From Voting

Newsbusters.org:
Chris Matthews received his long-desired wish on Thursday, an exclusive interview with Barack Obama. The Hardball anchor didn't exactly live up to the title of his show, wondering about Republican efforts to "make it difficult for minorities to vote" and questioning who was better, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden?

Talking to the President at American University, Matthews read a question from a viewer via Twitter: "What can we do to stop the GOP, the Republicans, from rigging the states, rigging the votes, state by state, to disenfranchise voters and destroy our democracy?" The host added, "Thirty six states right now led by Republican legislatures have been trying to make it difficult for minority people to vote, especially in big cities and older people. Everybody knows the game."

Tossing a softball to Obama, he queried, "What's your reaction?"

At one point, the MSNBC host playfully teased the President, joking, "I have to ask you a little question you may not like to answer." He continued, "It's an essay question. The qualities required of a president. Vice President Joe Biden, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, compare and contrast."

Smiling at the cozy question, Obama laughed and then responded, "Not a chance I'm going there."
RELATED: Obama Takes Swipe at the Media on MSNBC: Actively Trying to ‘Divide and Splinter’ Us

Thursday, December 05, 2013

World Mourns Nelson Mandela, Former South African President and Anti-apartheid Leader, Dies at 95


FOXNews.com:
Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country's first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience, died Thursday at 95.

The announcement was made by South African president Jacob Zuma, who said in a nationally televised address," Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss."

Mandela  had spent almost three months in a Pretoria hospital after being admitted in June with a recurring lung infection. He died at his Johannesburg home and Zuma said he would be accorded a full state funeral.

In Washington, President Obama called him one of the "most influential, courageous and profoundly good" people to ever have lived. 

"He achieved more than could be expected of any man," an emotional Obama said, in remarks from the White House, adding: "He belongs to the ages."

Obama ordered U.S. flags to be lowered immediately to half staff until Monday evening in tribute to Mandela.

Meanwhile, South Africans gathered to celebrate Mandela's life and mourn his death. Outside the Soweto home where he once lived, some residents sang and danced while others gathered outside his Johannesburg home.

Mandela, who once said, "the struggle is my life," was a beloved hero of both South Africa and the world itself. His face was instantly recognizable in virtually any country, his story famous enough that he was portrayed in movies at least four times - by Morgan Freeman ("Invictus"), Sidney Poitier ("Mandela and de Klerk"), Danny Glover ("Mandela") and Dennis Haysbert ("Goodbye Bafana").
RELATED:  What you might not have known about Nelson Mandela

Cher's Son Apologizes for Idiot Mom Calling Sarah Palin a 'Dumb C-Word'


Breitbart.com:

Cher routinely attacks conservatives with hateful language via her Twitter account, so when she blasted former Gov. Sarah Palin as a "dumb c-word" it was hardly a surprise.

Turns out one of Cher's children wished his mother hadn't debased the political debate with such attacks.

Elijah Blue Allman, the son of Cher and southern rocker Gregg Allman, apologized on behalf of mom via Twitter this week. He addressed the apology to Palin, her daughter Bristol Palin and the governor's brother, Chuck Heath, Jr. 

@SarahPalinUSA @bristolsblog @ChuckHeathJr I'd like to apologize to the Palin Family for the ugly remarks &love
RELATED: Cher: Thanksgiving is 'the beginning of a great crime' 

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Liberal Scumbag Martin Bashir Resigns From MSNBC Over Vile Sarah Palin Comments


NYTimes.com:
Following a firestorm over his recent comments about Sarah Palin, the MSNBC host Martin Bashir resigned on Wednesday, citing what he called his “ill-judged comments.” 

Mr. Bashir had been listed as being on vacation while the network faced heated criticism for not taking disciplinary action against him. 

The decision was prompted by a commentary Mr. Bashir directed last month against Ms. Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, in which he criticized her for statements comparing American debt to slavery, saying she deserved the same kind of humiliating and degrading treatment that some slaves faced.
Mr. Bashir later issued an apology on the air for the commentary. He then left for what was called a vacation. 

In a statement the network released on Wednesday, Mr. Bashir said he had asked permission to take additional time around Thanksgiving. That led, he said, to “further reflection” and a meeting with Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC. Following that meeting, Mr. Bashir said, “I have tendered my resignation.” 

He added that he hoped the network would be allowed to “focus on the issues that matter without the distraction of myself, or my ill-judged comments.” 

Mr. Griffin issued a statement saying: “I understand his decision and I thank him for three great years with MSNBC. Martin is a good man and respected colleague — we wish him only the best.” 

Mr. Bashir, who first established a career in television in Britain, joined MSNBC from ABC News in 2010. 

He had been suspended once while at ABC for making comments considered crude and sexist at a dinner for Asian-American journalists.
RELATED:  Good Riddance: The Best (Worst) of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir

Police Seize White Teenage Girl from Black Legal Guardians Without Cause


Not the ideal example that racism still exists, but still:
A teenage Oklahoma hip hop dancer is still shaken after her dream trip to a Texas dance studio ended up with her in handcuffs and taken to Child Protective Services and her guardians in police custody. 

"They had nothing on us," dance instructor Emmanuel Hurd told ABCNews.com. "Instead of going the route they should have went, they took her to CPS. The only reason someone gave me was we were black and Landry was white." 

Landry Thompson, 13, has been dancing since she was 7. For the past few years, she has dreamed of traveling to Houston to dance with well-known hip hop dancer Chachi Gonzales at Planet Funk Academy. 

Over the weekend, Thompson's parents, instructor and dance partner made her dream come true. Landry flew to Houston from her Tulsa, Okla., home on Saturday and met up with Hurd, 29, and her dance partner Josiah Kelly, 22. 

The three spent the day at the dance academy and taking part in a video shoot. After wrapping and dinner, the exhausted trio stopped at a gas station around 3 a.m. to program their GPS to find their hotel, according to Hurd. He dozed off and awoke to find their car surrounded by police. 

"Everything was going amazing. It was a beautiful day .... and then everything went bad," Hurd told ABCNews.com today. 

Hurd and Kelly were pulled out of the car and police told them not to worry, they weren't be arrested, just detained, Hurd said. 

Hurd had forms from Landry's mother making him her guardian for the duration of the trip, her birth certificate and her insurance card, among other forms, which he said he tried to tell the officers. 

"[The officer] puts the handcuffs on very, very tight [and] throws me in the back and does the same to Josiah," Hurd said. "All the while I'm looking at Landry. She's terrified." 

Landry, still in the car, said she called her mother. 

"I was crying. I tried to put the police on the phone with my mom and they said they didn't want to," she told ABCNews.com. 

The teen said she was terrified and that the cops didn't believe she was giving them her real name, since she wasn't on the runaway list. 

Landry's mom, Destiny Thompson, said she wasn't surprised by the late-night call because rehearsals often go late into the night, but could tell something was wrong when she heard the commotion in the background and her daughter's upset voice. 

A police officer eventually took Landry's phone and spoke to her mother. 

"He got on the phone and he said, 'Are you aware your daughter is in Houston, Texas, with two black men?' And I said, 'Yes, I am aware of that,'" Destiny Thompson told ABCNews.com. "Then he started mumbling stuff about my parenting, why I would let her do that and then he proceeded to tell me the people she was with were intoxicated or on something." 

"There's no possible way these men were intoxicated, that's not how they live," the mom said. "I knew right then I had some trouble." 

Why White Trash Habits Keep College Graduates in the Parental Basement


Breitbart.com:

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed in his Second Bill of Rights that having a job is a right, the squire of Hyde Park unwittingly ushered in the era of White Trash Normal, the subject of my new book.

With apologies to FDR, a job is not a right. How could it be? Obtaining and holding down a job are instead obligations unless a trust fund (now, that’s my idea of a right!—) relieves you of such mundane concerns. It seems that that many recent college grads agree with President Roosevelt, however. Indeed, many have not bothered to cultivate the social virtues, including humility, required for landing and keeping a job. Could that be why so many are joining the leisure class rather than the workforce? 

In a thought-provoking story, Time magazine recently explored “the real reason new college graduates can’t get hired. It’s not because they lack STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) training, and the recession is only partly to blame. Young people who have bad manners (now called "social skills) and dress eccentrically drive high youth unemployment. Time quoted a global study by Talent Shortage Survey from ManpowerGroup that found that one in five employers worldwide can’t find qualified young people to fill jobs. 

"Specifically, companies say candidates are lacking in motivation, interpersonal skills, appearance, punctuality and flexibility," Time noted. Such sloppiness shows us that the values of Skunk Hollow have gone mainstream. And if a young person gives off a vibe of believing a job is just another entitlement, he is less likely to get it. It's also not a bad idea to dress appropriately when seeking work. 

Some recent college graduates show up for job interviews in get-ups that would make Snuffy Smith, the moonshiner from the Appalachia, look respectable. Let's face it: Tattoos are dandy if you are a Maori but otherwise do little to improve a young person's job prospects. Sixty percent of respondents in York College of Pennsylvania's 2013 report on Professionalism in the Workplace, which deals with employers' experiences with recent college graduates, regard tattoos as an impediment to professionalism. Yet 38 percent of those in the 18-29 age group are inked. 

Even more basic, perhaps, many college grads seem not to have come to terms with the concept of--uh--work.

A Forbes magazine article on job hunting mistakes new college grads make noted that all too many are likely to say they seek an entry level position where I can use my skills, ideas, and enthusiasm and I can learn a lot.
And a potential employer might care about this because?

When I ask interns to do low-level telephoning for me, they expect me to look up the phone numbers. Sorry, they’re there to help me with my job, not the other way around. A friend of a friend who was supervising recent graduates complained about their tendency to give assignments back to her with notes along the lines that someone should check this or that. She had to tell them, “That would be you.””

“"This group, age 20-32, makes a series of job-searching mistakes that stem from their sense of entitlement, lack of deference to authority, and over-involvement by their parents," Forbes reported. Elayne Clift, an adjunct faculty member at several New England colleges, wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education

"Increasingly, students seem not to realize what a college degree, especially a graduate degree, tells the world about one's abilities and competence. They have no clue what is expected of them at the higher levels of academic discourse and what will be expected of them in the workplace."

One of the main reasons so many privileged young college graduates act like White Trash is, ironically, that they are spoiled. They don’t recognize that work is something you do out of obligation. Enthusiasm is nice, but it’s not historically why people have worked.
RELATED:  Kan. school reportedly prohibits student from posting fliers with Bible verses

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Kirsten Powers: Being A Democrat Was My Religion


Or Being a Democrat Means To Follow A Godless, White, Liberal Agenda:
Former Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers on her conversion from atheism to Christianity: "I think my whole life had centered on Democratic politics, I was very much in that bubble. I worked in the Clinton administration so I had all these friends from there, and then in Democratic politics in New York, so that's what we sort of bonded over--that was our religion, to a certain extent."  
RELATED: Democrat Kirsten Powers Says Party's Politics was Her Religion Before Her Conversion

Homosexual, Global Warming Alarmist Sam Champion Leaves ABC for Weather Channel


And yes it matters that Sam Champion is gay, because it speaks to his morally bankrupt foundation and his willingness to lie and hyperbole in order to push a Godless agenda:
ABC announced on Monday that weatherman and global warming alarmist Sam Champion will be leaving the network for the Weather Channel. Champion has developed a long history of the most hyperbolic predictions about climate change. Additionally, the ABC personality has promoted bizarre environmentalists such as No Impact Man, an activist who shunned toilet paper.

On February 8, 2008, Champion ridiculously asked Good Morning America viewers, "Could global warming one day force us into space to live?" On June 25, 2007, the weatherman promoted Colin Beavan, the anti-toilet paper No Impact Man. When his ABC colleagues expressed skepticism, Champion reassured Chris Cuomo that the host could keep "your toilet paper," but didn't mention the rest of the country. Here are the top five most obnoxious examples of Sam Champion's environmental extremism:


5. Let's Celebrate Living in Filth

4. News Challenging Global Warming "Not Reportable as Such."

3. Save the Planet: Boycott Toilet Paper!
          2. "Will Billions Die from Global Warming?"  

          1. Panic! Flee the Earth!   

RELATED: More Global Warming Lies

Robert Gibbs: ‘Inexplicable’ If Obama Doesn’t Fire Someone Over Obamacare Website


Just ask Eric Holder and Kathleen Sebelius, no matter how much of an utter fail you are within his administration, Barack Obama holds no one accountable:
Former White House Press Sec. Robert Gibbs joined the panel guests appearing on MSNBC’s Now on Monday, and expressed a much less sanguine view of the White House’s political prospects in the wake of the problem-plagued launch of HealthCare.Gov. He said it would be “inexplicable” if President Barack Obama did not shake up the personnel involved in that failure.
MSNBC host Alex Wagner began by observing that the inadvertent “indictment” of government by using the prhase “private sector velocity” to describe the latest fixes to the insurance exchange website might have been a bad decision. Gibbs replied that, often times, “the truth is the best way to go at it.” 

“This has been a completely unnecessary embarrassment,” Gibbs said. “It’s been an embarrassment for activist government in many ways.”

Wagner noted that influential National Journal columnist Ron Fournier has called for the president to shake up his staff to account for the failures associated with the implementation of the ACA. 

“It will be inexplicable if somebody involved in the creation of the website doesn’t get fired or a group of people don’t get fired,” Gibbs added. 

“There aren’t good excuses for not firing people,” he continued. “Private sector velocity should also include the velocity of moving somebody’s framed pictures out of their office and into a new job.”
RELATED:  Is the HealthCare.gov Fix Too Late to Save Obamacare?

46-Year-Old Hollywood Actress Maria Bello Comes "Out" As A Lesbian


Of course, regarding this story, there will be no articles by the mainstream press on how a 46yo woman suddenly waking up to being "gay" contradicts the "born this way" movement--a tactic used so prevalently (and successfully) by gays to equate themselves to race and the civil rights movement. But hey, why let a little fact like that get in the way of the continual Godless, indoctrination by the Hollywood Left and their cohorts in the media to make homosexuality normal. And if you're a young, naive girl growing up in morally bankrupt America, you too can start to look at your BFF in a sexually demonic way:
Maria Bello has come out as gay and has a girlfriend.

The "A History of Violence" actress wrote about telling her 12-year-old son Jackson that she was romantically involved with a woman he knew, Clare.

She revealed her sexuality in a piece entitled "Coming Out as a Modern Family," in Friday's New York Times.

The revelation was prompted by her son innocently asking her if there was something she wasn’t telling him, leading to his becoming curious about her love life.


“He was right; I was with someone romantically and I hadn’t told him. I had become involved with a woman who was my best friend, and, as it happens, a person who is like a godmother to my son,” wrote the "Coyote Ugly" star.

She reflected on the moment she realized her feelings for Clare, looking through photos and journals in her garden.
“I came across a black-and-white one of my best friend and me taken on New Year’s Eve,” wrote Bello, “We looked so happy, I couldn’t help but smile. I remembered how we had met two years before; she was sitting in a bar wearing a fedora and speaking in her Zimbabwean accent.”
RELATED: Tom Daley 'brave and courageous' to reveal relationship with man

Monday, December 02, 2013

Liberal's Latest Excuse For Barack Obama: He'd Be A Better President If We Repealed 22nd Amendment


Fast and Furious. Benghazi coverup. Historically-low approval ratings. 6 wars since becoming POTUS. Godless, social agenda. Catering to white liberals on everything. Blacks faring better under Bush than Obama. Rollout for Obamacare an utter fail...the list goes on. But if you're a rabid Obamabot, surely it's a "RACIST!!!" GOP and that nonsensical 22nd Amendment that's holding Barry O. back from being the best POTUS he could be:
Last week Frank J. Fleming, one of the funniest bloggers around, tweeted: "At this point in the Obama presidency, we were supposed to be talking about how we needed to repeal the 22nd Amendment," which limits presidents to two terms. 

We laughed and gave Fleming a retweet. On Wednesday we observed that it's hard for a political humorist to keep up with the real-life absurdities of the Obama crowd. To illustrate the point, along comes Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian at New York University, with an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that we need to repeal the 22nd Amendment.

Now of course the way this was supposed to work was that Obama would be such an amazing president that he would come to seem indispensable. There were people who felt that way about Reagan and Clinton in their last years in office. Probably someone somewhere would still stake that claim on Obama's behalf, but we doubt even Slate would publish such a far-fetched argument, never mind the Washington Post.

So Zimmerman doesn't argue that Obama deserves a third term to continue his great success, only that "Barack Obama should be allowed to stand for re election [again]" and that "citizens should be allowed to vote for--or against--him." Where it gets funny is in Zimmerman's resort to the 22nd Amendment as an excuse for the failures of Obama's first and second terms.

Zimmerman opens with a 1947 quote from Sen. Harley Kilgore, a West Virginia Democrat, who "condemned [the] proposed constitutional amendment" on the ground that, in Kilgore's words: "The executive's effectiveness will be seriously impaired, as no one will obey and respect him if he knows that the executive cannot run again." (We're pretty sure Zimmerman has the chronology backward here: Kilgore's quote preceded the proposing of the amendment and was part of the debate over whether Congress would do so.)

There's no denying Obama's effectiveness has been seriously impaired. As Zimmerman notes, the president's approval rates have plunged--to 37% in one poll--and amid the ObamaCare disaster, "many of Obama's fellow Democrats have distanced themselves from the reform and from the president." The administration's purported recent deal with Iran, likewise, is drawing "fervent objections" not just from hawkish Republicans but from Northeastern Democrats like Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez.

If Obama were running for re-election, Zimmerman thinks that wouldn't happen: "Democratic lawmakers would worry about provoking the wrath of a president who could be reelected. Thanks to term limits, though, they've got little to fear." But "the scariest problem of all," Zimmerman claims, is that Obama does not "have to fear the voters," so that "if he chooses, he could simply ignore their will."

Right off the bat it seems obvious that Zimmerman has committed a fallacy of causality. We puzzled over whether to call it post hoc or cum hoc before realizing it's a rare example of an ante hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Zimmerman is asserting without evidence that events in the present are being caused by an event in the future, namely Obama's leaving office for good on Jan. 20, 2017.

Why is this fallacious? For one reason, because it does not describe the behavior of all two-term presidents since the 22nd Amendment went into effect. Only Nixon and George W. Bush are generally regarded to have had disastrous second terms. Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton all had some difficulties in their second terms, but none that proved crippling to their effectiveness or poisonous to their public standing.

There have also been disastrous one-term presidents--Carter for sure, and we'd also count Lyndon B. Johnson. Because LBJ took office with less than half of President Kennedy's term left, he was eligible to seek a full second term in 1968. He withdrew in the face of a surprisingly strong primary challenge from the antiwar left. In terms of his ability to influence Congress, LBJ arguably had been the most effective president of the 20th century, at least during his 1964-65 heyday. By 1968 he was washed up.

The proximate cause of Obama's current decline in esteem and authority is the failure of a project he undertook during his first term--ObamaCare. That he has in common with Nixon (the Watergate burglary and coverup) and George W. Bush (the Iraq war). Given that all three of these presidents sought and won a second term, it seems far-fetched to speculate that the prospect of a third term would have led to substantially better decision making in the first term.

As for Zimmerman's fear that Obama may ignore the will of the voters, all we can say is he must've been out of the country in 2010 when ObamaCare was passed. It is preposterous to suggest that so willful a president would be more responsive if only he had the legal possibility of being president for life. Further, it is difficult to deny that the requirements of re-election in 2012 were behind the administration's abuse of the Internal Revenue Service, the Benghazi coverup, and the fraudulent claim that "if you like your plan you can keep it." Does anyone think the prospect of a third Nixon term in 1976 would have averted Watergate?