Photo of the Day – President Obama In Joplin!

Michael Moore Does The Left No Favors

I’ve long thought that Michael Moore harms liberal causes more than he helps them, even though he sometimes says things that are very true and need to be said. This post will attempt to shine some light on his sometimes warped perspectives and fantastical ideas that make liberals look bad and mislead many people who aren’t able to or don’t take the time to investigate the voracity of his statements

Here is just one example of Mr. Moore’s apparent ignorance or willful spreading of bogus information from a year and a half ago. I chose it because it highlights a lot of what is wrong with his thinking. It’s falls into the “betrayal” category with that small group of bloggers and pundits who are best described as the Professional Left. From “An Open Letter To President Obama from Michael Moore” (emphasis mine)…

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

IT ISN’T SO! What alternate reality are you operating from, Michael? That highlighted portion above is fantasy, based on either ignorance or he is willfully misleading his readers for exactly what reason, I don’t know. The problem with Michael Moore’s hyperbole is that those “multitude of young people who are the backbone of your campaign” actually heard President Obama say the words below many times, unlike Mr. Moore apparently.

Why on earth would Moore imply that President Obama was going against his word and would “destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you.” It just isn’t true, Michael. As a supporter of candidate Obama since the keynote address at the 2004 convention, I’ve listened very carefully to what he said. I listened to his arguments on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, I studied his responses and knew exactly how he felt about both war fronts. He is doing exactly what he said he would do. I may not have completely agreed with him on all of it, but he did make it quite clear. How can that be said to “destroy” hopes and dreams if those never were their hopes and dreams. There are no real supporters of candidate Obama who thought for a minute that he was going to pull us out of Afghanistan immediately. NONE! Because he repeatedly and consistently told us that he thought the focus needed to shift back to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 were at.

In light of the killing of OBL, I think the American people, including those “millions” who placed their hopes and dreams in the president, know that he fulfilled his campaign promise. They have been reminded of it recently by the media and no amount of Michael Moore’s rewriting of history can change that. It only serves to shine a light on Michael Moore’s shifting outrage and opportunism. He loves being a thorn in the side of power, even when that power is on the same side of the ideological spectrum.

I also challenge his idea that all young people are complete pacifists. I’ve been at the university I currently work at for over 20 years, as an undergrad and grad student and for 15 years as a technician and adjunct professor. I talk to a lot of young people, conservative, liberal and everywhere in between. There are some who are pacifists for sure, but they are a very slim minority. This isn’t the 60’s or 70’s anymore on college campuses. These people didn’t live through the Vietnam War like many of us and they didn’t experience the anti-war protests in the late 60’s and early 70’s.. They’ve barely been taught about the Vietnam War and what followed it. It’s not right, but it is the truth. So, to imply that current young people are all pacifists and there “hopes and dreams would be destroyed” is just stupid and naive. Even if it were true that the president went back on his word, which it is not (see above clip if you are still stuck on that point), but even if he did, would it really destroy their hopes and dreams, Michael? Really? Remember, this group has grown up in a much different world than us older folks. They grew up in the era of the television wars, Iraq twice, Afghanistan and all the other interventions.

And don’t forget, many of them grew up with President Bush and his goons telling them all sorts of wrong information and repeating it ad nauseam on the highest rated cable network, Fox News. I’m sure Micheal will claim to know them because he gives speeches for over $20,000 a pop to them, arriving in his limo, I assume, and flying back to either his multi-million dollar apartment in New York City or his multi-million dollar Lake Michigan beachfront property near Traverse City. But the reality is that college campuses have a wide range of opinions on them and his use of a warped stereotype of young people and a bogus proposition, that the President went back on his word, is just misleading and wrong. What would be his real motivation for this hyperbole? Tien at The People’s View poses a great theory about many of the “critics” on the left, narcissism, but I’ve been told that narcissists are also concerned about their appearance and Michael doesn’t seem to have that problem.

For a recent example of Michael Moore’s fantastical rantings, check out this story about his recent bout with “Twittarrhea” that left a huge mess all over the Twitterverse. It’s another window into the mind of Michael Moore and why he does us liberals no favors.

The Root Of The Problem With The Professional Left – Narcissism

The People’s View, one of my new favorite blogs, introduced a new blogger this weekend with a phenomenal post that explains the motivations behind many of the Obama-haters on the left who seem intent on undermining our democratic president and party. I highly recommend you go read the entire post. I’m pasting a couple of paragraphs I really liked, but go read the whole thing. It sheds a lot of light on this problem and gives great advice on how we as a party and individuals should deal with it. I learned a few things that I will attempt to apply on this blog. From Tien at The People’s View…

To satisfy a need on my part to understand the underlying psychology of people who claim they represent the Progressive Left but who have a singular focus of berating our Democratic President, I embarked on a small research project to learn why this happens.

It turns out the answer is fairly simple. The cause of this phenomenon is narcissism. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) has quite an array of symptoms and behaviors that easily match those demonstrated by a host of pundits, professional demonstrators and keyboard warriors all claiming to represent the ‘base’ of the liberal population in this country.

Given a list of symptoms from any one source, the dominant symptom is a pathological need for attention that far surpasses that of ordinary people. Secondary symptoms include extreme envy of others or belief that others envy them; inability to recognize boundaries or experience empathy; hypersensitivity to insults and criticism; an over-inflated sense of self-importance; unrealistic expectations and a preoccupation with success and power.