Patterico's Pontifications

2/13/2009

Three Fun Videos on Obama, Caterpillar Jobs, and the Stimulus

Filed under: Crime,Economics,General,Obama — Patterico @ 5:03 pm



The first two videos set up the third. Watch them in order — it’s worth your time.

First, Obama says the head of Caterpillar says he’ll re-hire laid-off employees if Congress passes the stimulus — and then, the head of Caterpillar denies it:

Then a young Republican Congressman tells the story of how Obama tried to put him on the spot at that same rally, by telling plant employees to lobby the Congressman to vote for the stimulus. According to the Congressman, not a single employee did so:

Then Jake Tapper presses the White House spokesliar on both of these embarrassments — and the spokesliar dodges, bobs, and weaves:

Good stuff.

Tapper is one of the few people actually pressing Obama about his nonsense. During the campaign, Tapper was airily dismissive of me when I called him on an error he made regarding the president’s ability to fire the SEC chairman, so I can’t declare myself a fan without reservation. But he generally does a better job than most of these clowns.

Meanwhile, here is more proof that the idiots voting for this nonsense didn’t read it before their votes.

65 Responses to “Three Fun Videos on Obama, Caterpillar Jobs, and the Stimulus”

  1. Poor Dear Leader — governing turns out to be a whole lot harder than campaigning, doesn’t it? Let’s hope Mr. Obama learns the difference between the two sometime really soon.

    JVW (bff0a4)

  2. That is going to leave a mark …

    JD (09132b)

  3. JD, why so negative all the time? What can I do to bring some smiles and optimism into your life?

    TLove (012115)

  4. Oh Lord. Here we go . . .

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  5. I knew that would get you in here Patterico. =)

    TLove (012115)

  6. Tlove – You could tell Barack and Hacks to quit being dishonest. That would be a good start.

    JD (09132b)

  7. Comment by TLove — 2/13/2009 @ 5:15 pm

    H/T Instapundit….
    Well, there’s always March 14th…

    AD - RtR/OS (3c43e7)

  8. TLove, what can you do? How about watching that public announcement thingy on TV 15 years ago about that bill that was “only a bill” that was trying to become a law and finally became a law? You might actually learn a nominally-(R) governor has zero power in writing bills that will become laws.

    You could also look into the depths of Obama’s inner circle ties. You would learn a thing or two about the anointed one.

    You could also look into the depths of the “stimulus” package, which ushers in national socialism and an overbearing central government.

    Upon doing some serious critical thinking (they do teach that at UCLA, don’t they?) you will find the Dems and other libs are factually vacuous. Then you could actively speak out with knowledge and understanding. (Isn’t that what lawyers are supposed to do?)

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  9. TLove knows how government works.

    TLove has History/Poli Sci degree from UCLA.

    TLove has JD from top 20 law school.

    TLove never said governors write bills.

    TLove does not engage in pointless arguments.

    John Hitchcock needs to back off.

    Was that simple enough for you?

    TLove (012115)

  10. Yup, it was simple enough for me to know that UCLA hands out degrees like candy. Yup.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  11. If that helps you sleep at night.

    TLove (012115)

  12. TLove, I have already determined you are unprincipled, miscreant, or anarchist. I would suggest you might be aberrant but you have no honor.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  13. “TLove does not engage in pointless arguments.”

    Naw, she just starts them and pleads innocence.

    Hehe!

    TLove – Get a job on Hairy Reid’s rail project – right up your alley.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  14. I think you guys are confusing Tlove with lovie/Emp.

    JD (09132b)

  15. Let me help you out JH.

    I don’t know anything. I have never researched any topics in my life. I don’t know anything, especially about history, political science or the law. UCLA hands out degrees like candy, as does USC Law School. The State of California hands out bar admissions like candy too. I am a liberal, and therefore I am unprincipled, a miscreant AND an anarchist. Oh yes, I also have no honor because…well, whatever reason you feel like.

    I hope this all puts your mind at ease and confirms all of your beliefs about me, and you can now go about your exciting life in peace.

    I’m headed out for the evening. I won’t think about you for even a second. Have a great weekend!!!

    TLove (012115)

  16. JD, TLove pointed out that the governor of CA was a Republican, trying to place the blame for CA’s problems on Republicans. When I tried to get her to tell me which party owned the legislature, she went into the “I’m not going to play that game” game. She wasn’t about to admit liberal Democrats ran the CA legislature. She was all about the Republican Governor’s responsibility for CA’s downfall. I’m not confusing TLove with Emp in the least. Both are insidious but TLove is much more open about her insidiousness.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  17. “I think you guys are confusing Tlove with lovie/Emp.”

    JD – Not a chance.

    TLove – You’re a blond, right?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  18. My bad.

    JD (09132b)

  19. USC Law?

    Couldn’t get into Stanford, UCLA or Berkeley?

    Obama über alles!!!!! (48dd5e)

  20. Which page of the Personal Injury Phone Book can I find you on?

    Obama über alles!!!!! (48dd5e)

  21. Spokesliar Gibbs may be the only person on the planet that can make Scotty McClelland look competent.

    JD (c6800b)

  22. I was wrong. I did give you all a second thought.

    First of all, I went to USC because I got a full ride there, but that’s besides the point.

    I read this blog because the ideas shared here are totally different from mine. I come here to read new ideas, and maybe to learn about something that I am not that familiar with. I believe that you can learn a lot by actually listening to divergent viewpoints. I read the articles Patterico quotes, and I read the references. I don’t assume that you are all bible beating right wing wackos, just because I don’t agree with you. I also don’t assume that you are uneducated or lack intelligence simply because we do not share the same views.

    You all attack me, and you don’t even know me. It is especially interesting that this follows Patterico’s post about AutoAdmit. Apparently, the mob mentality is alive and well here too.

    Clearly, I have nothing to learn from you, so I won’t come back here. Enjoy your blog. I hope that you don’t injure your arms slapping each other on your backs for agreeing on everything.

    TLove (012115)

  23. “You all attack me”

    If TLove says something questionable about somebody else = OK

    If somebody else questions TLove = Attack

    Nobody has attacked you in any serious way you big baby.

    Stop whining.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  24. I would not presume to speak for anyone else, but I suspect that some of the responses that Tlove took offense to were, more or less, a direct result of the recent influx of mendoucheous trollish behavior from the likes of Hacks and Peter. Things get a little heated from time to time, not just here. I do not wish to see you go, Tlove.

    JD (c6800b)

  25. What did TLove say that was so bad?

    There is a certain gang-up mentality that happens here (and on most political blogs). I’d like to see less of it. I haven’t followed the threads closely, but I would like generally to see more politeness shown to those on the other side of the political spectrum. I want this to be a place where people can disagree without being disagreeable.

    I’m going to write TLove and ask her to stick around.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  26. I agree, and am one of the worst offenders, at times, Patterico. Cretins like Peter and Hax deserve it. Tlove, not so much.

    JD (c6800b)

  27. Patterico, if you will start here and see the very brief dialogue between TLove and me, you will see why I am averse to her and why her self-pitying doesn’t sit well with me. I tried to engage her in an intellectual fact-based debate and she wanted nothing to do with the facts.

    While I agree wholeheartedly that people need to have their eyes opened to the facts, I won’t sit idly by while I’m attacked for trying to bring the facts to the light. I honestly feel sorry for the arrogantly unenlightened in general, but specific instances that present themselves to me… they bring the Irish up in me.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  28. I’m so bloody rich! Ha ha ha ha
    I own apartment buildings and shopping centers! Ha ha ha ha
    And I only know three chords! Ha ha ha ha
    Watch me burn, you fools!!!!!!

    Pablo (99243e)

  29. I didn’t use to beat my bible, but then I tried it once, and I was hooked.

    gp (336feb)

  30. First, Obama says the head of Caterpillar says he’ll re-hire laid-off employees if Congress passes the stimulus — and then, the head of Caterpillar denies it:

    When I first read about a CEO talking nice-nice about the stimulus plan, I suspected it was a case of an executive playing footsies with Obama. That some guy from Caterpillar was trying to ingratiate himself with some community organizer from Chicago — who’s now lodged in the Oval Office, God help us — in order to curry favor with the government when contracts were being handed out, or whatever. But I should have known all along that when words spew forth from Barack Jeremiah-Wright-is-my-mentor Obama’s mouth, nothing should be taken at face value.

    Mark (411533)

  31. John,

    Meh. That doesn’t seem like a reason to be in a fight with her.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  32. I don’t think—my opinion only—fighting is the issue. How people fight is the more pertinent issue.

    There are some TdJ around here who get very nasty fast. That’s different.

    Maybe an olive branch between TLove and John is in order? An “agree to disagree”?

    Again, just my opinion.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  33. What is a TdJ?

    JD (c6800b)

  34. Never mind. I figured it out.

    JD (c6800b)

  35. It’s just part of my racist ideology, JD.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  36. It always rears its ugly head, when you least suspect it. du jour – What race are the French?

    JD (c6800b)

  37. I won’t post the link, JD, but you should look for P.J. O’Rourke’s very non-PC National Lampoon article, “Americans Around the World.”

    There is a nice entry on the French.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  38. Make that “Foreigners Around the World.”

    I denounce myself for my American Exceptionalism.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  39. EB, you’re already denounced because you’re a college professor. You know, those people who think so highly of themselves they cannot be bothered by us little people.

    The only thing worse than a college professor is an attorney.

    Just sayin’.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  40. Now, if only I was a professor of law….

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  41. Actually, there is one class of individual even more detested than college professors and attorneys.

    Administrators. They don’t actually do anything other than create useless work for other people, while being paid more than people who actually do things—and they multiply rapidly (because they are usually in charge of hiring).

    At least in academia.

    It’s geeky, but check this out:

    http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/administ.htm

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  42. “There is a certain gang-up mentality that happens here (and on most political blogs).”

    Patterico – It does happen here, but I think TLove is crying wolf to a large extent. I don’t think I was being rough on this thread but if you disagree I would like to hear about it. John pointed out his exchanges, which had a little heat and you flagged a comment by red over on a different thread.

    I too hope she stays.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  43. I’ll have you know I permalinked that to my blog, EB. And you’re right, admin is even worsererer than those evil worthless useless lawyers who are all overpaid for doing nothing but sitting on their oversized tucusses and much worserer than those evil overpaid do-nothing professors who make their GAs do everything.

    (That OTT enough?)

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  44. Sadly, John, I teach at a primarily undergraduate institution, so I don’t get GAs. I haven’t had enough grant support (at least yet) to support a postdoctoral colleague.

    And administrators get paid quite a bit more than full professors.

    Sadly.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  45. EB, administrators get higher raises, percentage-wise, than professors, too. I learned that when doing my minimal research for my post in favor of eliminating government funding of colleges.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  46. […] original here:  Patterico’s Pontifications » Three Fun Videos on Obama … Share and […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Three Fun Videos on Obama … | www.fairs.ca (ba5d84)

  47. Gibbs is starting (or has he always?) channeling Obama. His speech is so full of “uhhh” that he can’t get out even a full complete sentence without sprinkling two or three in there.

    I think that its a crying shame that the president and his spokesperson both have the same speech impediment.

    WilliamP (e258e4)

  48. Geeze… Gibbs is like a deer in the headlights when facing Jake Tapper…

    I might need to start watching ABC news again…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  49. #24 = Accurate and I bicker with DR all da tiempo.

    Obama über alles!!!!! (48dd5e)

  50. EB,

    It is the same reason people who run hospitals are paid more than the MDs. Managing cats (Teachers or MDs) is not easy and certainly less maddening than teaching.

    Plus, you get summer vacation, tenure, the ability to do outside con$ulting and the admin does not.

    I hope you don’t go sounding like Gov.t Appartchiks who protest over a “perceived lack of value for your profession” when you have a relatively low stress life and comfortable post retirement benefits doing something intellectual.

    Some of us need to fight like savages to get what we have and I know I work lots harder than any Prof I know or for that mater have much more responsibility than they do.

    Obama über alles!!!!! (48dd5e)

  51. Umm…

    “Plus, you get summer vacation, tenure, the ability to do outside con$ulting and the admin does not…”

    I can see you don’t know much about academia, among other things.

    Let’s just not chat, you and I. You are just a troll, and like to fight about things that, to put it mildly, you know little about.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  52. America would be better off taking classes from Perfesser Blair. Although his prokaryotophilia might be hard to understand 🙂

    Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R., who wants DRJ back! (0ea407)

  53. EB, I take full responsibility for opening up that particular buffoonery. It seems some will find playful banter as an opportunity to do an unenlightened hack job. I obviously don’t know all the stresses involved in professoring but I know enough about dealing with the public to know there is indeed a great deal of stress.

    I wouldn’t mind being a professor because I’m a teacher at heart. I’m just not sure how I’d handle all the idiots who just want to cause trouble. Those 21-year-old kids walking into your office saying “I’m right. You’re wrong. Change my grade now.” I would be tempted to change the grade from a C to an F, just to prove a point.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  54. I think the Gibbs pressers will long be remembered and honored in the “incompetent press secretary” genre. I enjoy watching him. I know that’s mean, but whatever.

    Patricia (89cb84)

  55. Not to worry, John. The other fellow is just a troll, and likes to pick fights and be obnoxious. Remember, he said so in an early post. That is the goal. It’s not fun, and he’ll do it until he gets bored and moves on.

    Getting back to your post, there was a science fiction writer named Theodore Sturgeon (passed away quite awhile ago now). He had a maxim he called “Sturgeon’s Law”: 90% of everything is crap.

    So for every annoying student, there are many, many good ones. For some reason, we all seem to remember outrageously good or outrageously bad events! That seems to be true everywhere.

    That being said, you might enjoy this:

    http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/nosymp.htm

    The problem is that most professors, including myself, don’t talk to students that bluntly. So when those students get out into the working world, they quickly find out how unforgiving things can be.

    Bradley, thank you for the kind words, as usual.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  56. TLove,
    I believe that you can learn a lot by actually listening to divergent viewpoints.

    Very well said. That’s why I’m here, as well. I don’t often hear the views on this blog from other reporters. (Yes, I work in the evil MSM).

    The late Cathy Seipp expressed the problem with most journalists well (emphasis mine):

    “I grew up in conservative, practically all-white Los Alamitos, a hicksville suburb in Orange County…In high-school history class, the teacher mentioned that Jesus spoke Aramaic. This shocked one girl so much she started to cry, insisting tearfully that “Jesus spoke English!” If you explained you didn’t celebrate Christmas because you weren’t Christian, people often looked at you uncomprehendingly – as they did if you said you wanted to live somewhere else one day, or if you described a book they hadn’t heard of, which was practically any book.

    “So I spent my formative years in a constant state of irritation, which was good practice for my life today.Because here in Medialand, people often look at you uncomprehendingly if you explain that not everyone in America agrees with the received media wisdom about topics like affirmative action, abortion, and gun control – and that, furthermore, these people with different ideas are not necessarily evil bigots, even if some of them do go to church.

    The insular cluelessness of many of my colleagues actually irritates me more than the insular cluelessness of my uneducated old neighbors. Because journalists, unlike the descendents of Dust Bowl refugees, are supposed to be curious about – or at least aware of – other people with different points of view.

    Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R., who wants DRJ back! (0ea407)

  57. Oh, John, speaking of lessons learned….

    Many years ago, as an undergraduate, I received a particular score on a question on a biochemistry exam. I compared my answer and score to a friend of mine’s answer (he was in the same class with me). The answers appeared very similar, yet i had more points taken off.

    So I went to the professor, showed him the two exams, and pleaded for consistency.

    “Fair enough,” he told me, and deducted five points from my friend’s score.

    THAT taught me an important lesson or three.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  58. EB, that “no sympathy” stuff brought cherished memories back to the forefront in my mind. My high school alg teacher was an arrogant, uncaring, overbearing man. And he was the reason I wanted to be a high school advanced math teacher. I wanted to be just like him.

    He was always telling stories at the beginning of classes to prove he was an arrogant, uncaring, overbearing man.

    I have no doubt some of your parents will call me and complain. They do every year. I got a call a few years ago from an angry mother.

    “You hate little Johnnie,” she said. I said “you’re right, I do.” What else could I say? Nothing I said would change her mind. It didn’t make my hamburger taste any diferent.

    My first day of high school, he scared the crud out of me.

    If I don’t like you, I’ll fail you. If your mommy calls me and complains, I’ll fail you. It won’t make my hamburger taste any different.

    And there was the story about how he treated his young son when they lived in Chicagoland.

    I drove outside of the town and dropped my son off and gave him a dollar and told him to be home by supper. Whether he got home or not wouldn’t make my hamburger taste any different.

    He really did care about his students but he made certain nobody was going to try to play head games with him. And yes, he was very demanding when it came down to learning the material. I wanted to be just like him. And to this day, I use his favorite line: It won’t make my hamburger taste any different.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  59. Eric #58,

    I was always smarter and tougher than my teachers. I learned from maybe one in three. In some instances, like my Contracts professor, I did not realize the lesson until several years later. I coasted along with one out of three. And I learned despite one out of three.

    If you remember some little shit who said “I’ve had As for book reports on books I never read” …. I don’t criticize him for that because, in my opinion, school is mostly a paper game.

    nk (a12124)

  60. That made me laugh, John. As you figured out, it is a game he played to scare students into paying attention, and help them to realize (despite some of his histrionics) that the score they earn has little to do with the teacher, and everything to do with their ownership and preparation.

    Or, as my own PE teacher said when I was in the 7th grade (last period of the day)….

    “The only thing that stands between me and my wife and a cold beer is you. And you aren’t going to do anything to get in the way of that.”

    When I saw that teacher years and years later, I reminded him of that scary DI speech, and he laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes.

    “Too many Clint Eastwood movies,” he finally told me.

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  61. Eric – Just accept OuA’s asserted wisdom. He has declared himself to be a superior being. All resistance is futile.

    He is probably driving his S600 to the Jap market as we speak.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  62. Would that item be made by Matchbox?

    On that subject, a childhood dream come true:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvQU2Is68s

    Of course, I would probably end up putting one of these through someone’s window by mistake.

    Clint Eastwood put it best in “Magnum Force.”

    Eric Blair (ec334b)

  63. Thanks for the great line from Cathy, Bradley – loved to read it again, but it made me quite nostalgic all the same. As the saying goes, the world became a little less interesting when she passed on.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  64. […] Patterico, who has the pathetic answers to these embarassing […]

    Obama Embarrased - big time « Something should go here, maybe later. (c5fbdc)


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