ROPE-A-DOPE ALERT

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton essentially fell on her sword to take the blame for the poor security and failures leading up to the Benghazi attack. In an interview with CNN, she insisted that insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions.

As I commented on a friend's Facebook post earlier today, it is conceivable that this entire episode is being setup as a "Rope-A-Dope" strategy. Hillary comes out, accepts responsibility with the statement that the VP and Prez have not been involved in security issues. Well, back in April, a bomb had already been lobbed at the embassy. If the President had been involved in the Intel briefings, LIKE HE SHOULD HAVE, he should have been kept actively informed of security efforts there, since that event. That is my predicted line that will be presented at the debate tonight, either by Romney or one of the questioners.

Here is where the "Rope-A-Dope" strategy clicks in - after getting what should appear like a tough question, Obama can then step up and say something like, "yes, I know Ms. Clinton has accepted responsibility. And it's clear that as a State Department issue, she has a role in the matter. But the buck stops with me, and I do take responsibility. I am shocked, saddened (blah blah blah) at the entire episode. Mistakes have been made, and I will do all I can do identify and correct them."

It will all sound so powerful and presidential, and the press will fawn all over it. And if it happens, I guarantee that Hillary set this up, because Obama is not politically savvy enough to come up with it himself, let alone have the humility to play it that way. However, Hillary is more than savvy enough to play this simple Jedi mind trick.

If I'm right, you'll see me high-five-ing myself all over the place. We'll see. It's interesting to note that while walking to a debate prep session, reporters shouted out if he thought Hillary was to blame for Benghazi, and Obama didn't answer.

We'll see tonight.

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION 2012: WEDNESDAY

I watched bits and pieces of the events on Wednesday evening.  The most amazing part was the amendment vote to restore “God-given potential” into the Democratic platform, and establish that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.  After some contentious procedures to get a reliable vote, it passed the convention assembly by voice vote, but the boos from amendment opponents were loud and clear. 

Republicans, including Mitt Romney, were quick to jump on the chaos surrounding the controversy.  Reports began to come out that Obama had no problem with the “God-less” language, but then acted swiftly to put everything back when Republicans began to make the issue a major talking point. 

To add to the fracas, the DNC played a “Welcome to Charlotte” greeting from the host committee, which included the line, “Government is the only thing we all belong to.” I suppose that would play really well in China, but in America, it’s the other way around:  Here the Government belongs to US.

The big question of the evening seemed to be the one the Obama Administration has been most afraid to address:  Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?  And Bill Clinton appeared at the podium tonight to answer that question, goading the convention hall to respond with a resounding “YES!!!!”  I suppose the answer is yes if you are a government employee who has managed to get a nice pay raise, but for the worker bees like Yours Truly, I can definitely say NO.  And I’m pretty sure there are at least 23 million people out there who would agree with me. 

Clinton was clearly the best speaker of the evening, and he started on an upbeat, bi-partisan vein.  He stressed the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together for solutions.  Totally agree, and consider it the hallmark of this speech. But it went downhill from there.  For someone seeking bipartisanship, you don’t start trashing the other guys, especially when you television audience (not the party faithful in the convention hall) are not completely decided about who to vote for in November.  He threw out barbs left and right at the Republicans, particularly at Ryan and Romney, and left little ground to draw some form of line in the sand to establish consensus.  It was clearly a lot of red meat for the party faithful, and they ate it up eagerly. 

Clinton’s speech was full of statistics and numbers, and frankly, I couldn't take notes and keep up with it all.  All I can think about is the old saw, “80% of statistics are completely made up, including this one.”  I’ll leave to the fact checkers to figure out what was true and what wasn’t in the morning, but to see Clinton act so wonkish was a bit strange.

He took special care to single out the ‘fiction’ of the $716 billion cut from Medicare, trying to explain that money cut from Medicare actually meant that Obama strengthened it.  Not buying it, and even liberal pundits have verified that one.  He then cited the efforts of the Simpson-Bowles commission to cut government spending, though Obama has yet to take any of the suggestions from the commission forward.  Clinton also played the race-baiting game, knocking voter ID as a Republican tool to prevent minorities from voting.  But as I noted on Facebook, every idiot in that hall needed an ID to get in; yet Clinton insists that asking for an ID to vote is oppressive.

Guess I should wrap this up.   I think I’m going to need a lot of energy to tune in Thursday night.

GO ROMNEY!

Now the Republican National Convention is over, and WOW.  Great run and finish by all of the major players, and it was very impressive.  The surprise speech by Clint Eastwood nailed all that is wrong with our current administration today, and Mitt Romney did a good job of bringing it home. 

I admit it, I was underwhelemed with Romney.  I knew he was a governor of Massachusetts, and has pushed "Romneycare" there, but didn't think he had true conservative credentials.  I have been looking for a candidate who knows that our country, and our economy are in seriously awful shape.  Now that facts are coming out about Romney, facts that make me wonder, "why haven't I heard about this before?"

The most striking story was the one about the missing girl in New York City.  Back in 1996, the poor father, a partner at Bain Capital allowed his daughter to attend a party in NYC.  And she just disappeared. 

Romney didn't have to do anything.  A good boss would have said, "go find your daughter, don't worry about your place here."  Romney did more than that.  A LOT more.  He shut down the office.  He flew dozens of employees from Bain Capital into New York, and set up a command post there.  He hired private detectives.  They set up a hot line for tips. He called Bain partner companies, like the accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, who went to action putting up posters and getting involved in the search. Bain employees were literally stopping people on the street and asking if they recognized the girl. 

The story reached regional attention, and someone called into the tip line, asked if there was a reward, then abruptly hung up.  Police traced the call to a house in New Jersey, where they found the girl shivering in the basement and suffering from an Ecstasy overdose.

Now this is impressive, but this was not an isolated incident.  Romney has participated in a many, many acts of charity and goodwill, and most of these stories have been kept quiet, understating his humility and compassion.

Meanwhile, the Mainstream Media sneer and go on about how "greedy" Romney was at Bain Capital.  This story just blows that narrative away.

I know about Bain Capital, because I worked at one of their client companies where Bain was involved. Of course, I didn't know Mitt Romney and was never directly involved with the Bain  management team but I was helping to implement their solution (quite successfully, I might add). 

The fact is, if Bain Capital happened to walk into the door of your business, your business was already in trouble, perhaps about to fail.  The worst case, either way, was that you were going to lose your job and pension.  For businesses like Sealy, Staples, Domino's Pizza and Steel Dynamics, under Bain's leadership those businesses thrived and grew. 

Now, I can go on all day about Bain Capital, talking how the business works and what it means to the rank-and-file of an impacted company.  But right now, I want to contrast Mitt Romney with our incumbent president, Barack Obama.

Obama has no human interest stories to share, nothing that indicates where he stepped to help anyone.  Not even with his own family.  Just a week ago, author Dinesh D'Souza was approached by Obama's brother George, who needed $1000 for medical bills.  Apparently the President of the USA was too busy to be bothered.  In fact, George can't even get a visa to visit the US. Obama has family members living in literally 3rd World Poverty levels, yet he won't lift a finger to help them.

Meanwhile, there is the time when Romney delivered Christmas gifts to two sons severely injured in an auto accident which left them crippled.  In addition, he paid for their college educations and participated in fundraisers on their behalf.

There are other stories.  The difference is clear, and it makes me more certain than ever on which level to pull in November.

HERE I GO AGAIN!
As you can tell, it's been almost 3 years since my last post. I've been busy! In the last three years, I have expanded my consulting business, worked on projects in Japan and Europe(!) and got a little more involved in Facebook than I probably have time for.

Meanwhile, a lot has happened in the political front. In spite of my reluctantly hopeful assessment of President Obama, things have definitely gone downhill. GW Bush's $100 billion stimulus didn't do anything measurable for the economy, so Obama shoved out another $800 billion. And things still got worse. Well, Keynesian methods of "priming the pump" are now officially disproved, although there are a few folks out there that believe that it's only because we still didn't spend enough money.

Anyway, more to say but it's late and I still (thankfully) have a project. Later, all.