Bits & Pieces - A Walter Cronkite Moment

A Walter Cronkite Moment

Bits ‘n Pieces

By Bob Robinson

In a copyrighted story from Associated Press, published by Newmax, Pres. Barack Obama tells NBC Nightly News that he isn’t worried about people believing he is a Muslim or that he doesn’t have a legitimate birth certificate.

Stating that he is a Christian, he says “the facts are the facts.”

Stating that he wouldn’t get much done if he spent all his time chasing rumors, he says he can't go around with his "birth certificate plastered on (his) forehead."

Personally, I think the nation would be better off if he couldn’t get anything done.

Too bad.

I get a lot of emails from a variety of organizations. I try to glance at each one to see if there is anything of interest. If I find it, and have the opportunity, I pass it on to the people who should know: the taxpayer.

A Republican has been chosen Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) Porker of the Month for August. His name is Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky).

He sponsored legislation to give $5 million a year (of our money) to conservation groups that work overseas on behalf of endangered ‘great cats and rare canids,’ such as cheetahs, lions and Ethiopian wolves.

I’m sure these animals appreciate the American taxpayers’ generosity.

One group interested in applying, should Rogers’ bill become law, is the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund. Its grants administrator, Allison Rogers, is the congressman’s daughter.”

Commented CAGW President Tom Schatz:  “Americans are being forced to tighten their belts while the economy is limping along, but that doesn’t deter porkers in Congress, like Rep. Rogers, who think nothing of using the hard-earned tax dollars of the U.S. Treasury to subsidize family members.”

Speaking of spending, Newsmax has a story from Moneynews.com about the “Unrepentant Drunk” – how our government’s approach to economics sits with a respected businessman.

Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and now CEO of investment bank Invemed Associates, sees the economy in trouble. And he has colorful terms for it.

"We have not begun to take the cure," the former New York Stock Exchange director told CNBC.

"It’s not unlike a drunk that keeps drinking and saying tomorrow I’m going to work on my problems. We should have taken the cure a couple years ago, (but) we've prolonged it by the stimulus packages."

In the end, last year’s $862 billion of fiscal stimulus accomplished little, Langone says. As a result, the economy remains under water, he says.

"It's not a double-dip: We never came out of it."

And unbelievably, the New York Times agrees!! Cal Thomas wrote this morning in Townhall.com that Pres. Obama may have duplicated an historic event that goes back more than 40 years. Thomas says…

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy.

Responding to Cronkite's reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Now President Obama appears to have "lost" New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman, who enthusiastically supported the president's redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working. In a recent column titled "This is Not a Recovery," Krugman took issue with the president and Vice President Joe Biden that we have experienced a summer of economic recovery.

"Unfortunately, that's not true," he wrote. "This isn't a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policymakers should be doing everything they can to change that fact."

Krugman asked an essential question: "Why are people who know better sugarcoating economic reality? The answer, I'm sorry to say, is that it's all about evading responsibility."

It is that, and more. The administration is so locked into its left-wing, "tax, borrow and spend" ideology that it has become like someone trapped in a cult: unable to escape and endlessly repeating the same mantra.

Finally, from Daily Events, a moment in history…

On this date in 1146, European leaders outlawed crossbows, intending to end war for all time -- thus proving crossbow bans don't work either.

Have a great day and feel safe and secure. Big Brother watches over us.

Watch for more Bits ‘n Pieces as they occur. Good stuff? Bad stuff? You decide.

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to receive notification of his comments, opinions and reports when they are posted, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.