Inside the Asylum

Oh what joy ... to borrow Instapundit's catchphrase: the country's in the very best of hands!

Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11, was present at last Friday's (in Feb 2009) White House meeting of families of terrorism victims. Her impression was that President Obama was saying the right words in general, but when it came to specifics he was uncertain, uninformed, and sometimes just plain mistaken. Ms. Burlingame is an attorney who has followed closely the legal aspects of the terrorism cases, and her detailed, probing questions were met with stammers, stares, and statements that betrayed an understanding of the law that was, she said, "flat out wrong."

I'm not paraphrasing. That's the headline.

President Obama addressed the idea of taxing and regulating marijuana ... His words: “No, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.” Clearly, he got that wrong... The moderator who was reading questions submitted via whitehouse.gov, raised the topic. His answer was prefaced with the recognition that this was a “fairly popular question.” Actually, it was the most popular question, by far. Yet the president failed to treat it with the same thoughtfulness awarded to other topics. The entirety of his response is below (yes, it’s only 53 seconds long). Do you think he handled it fairly?

I'm in two minds about this particular debate, so I won't offer an opinion about the rights and wrongs of it. What I find amusing is the way hardcore Obamarites are suddenly finding that the changemeister isn't quite what they thought they were voting for. The comments are also interesting. I've excerpted a small selection:

This to me is a sign of ignorance or perhaps a person the enjoys others suffering. In either case I take offense to this display of disrespect to the majority of free Americans.

The whole Change.org thing was Obama's idea, his baby and he laughingly blows of a huge number of voters

Way to blow off the question and insult the online crowd that got you into office Obama.

I actually cried when I heard the dismissive answer

ONE WORD, REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No change, no hope.

I started supporting financially the Obama push even before his presidential campaign got going. Having read his books, listened to his podcasts, and heard him speak a few times i had so much hope... Your uneducated, belittling, half-assed reply to the multitude of cannabis legalization questions was appalling.

Obama you are the joke and I wish I was in a another life in another country cause this one is f****d and its gonna get worse

betrayed, sad, insulted, rage... what negative emotion didn't I feel after seeing that?

This is at Change.org!!!

Previous posts discussed Iran and Cuba ... now ... the Dutch have something to say about Obama.

The Netherlands on Tuesday expressed surprise at U.S. President Barack Obama's qualification of the Netherlands as a "tax haven." The Dutch Finance Ministry reacted with astonishment to the list presented by Obama on Monday, which names the Netherlands as one of the world's top three corporate tax havens, together with Bermuda and Ireland. A spokesperson said the ministry is working with its U.S. colleagues to trace the origin of this misunderstanding and remove it... The spokesperson said the Netherlands has "a very average tax level." The Dutch embassy in Washington has expressed surprise at such accusations. "This is factually not correct," the embassy said in a statement to U.S. media.

Damn those evil Dutch and their clogs. They must be stashing all that ill-gotten cash in their windmills or something.