Obama’s Weekly Address: Let’s Use That Olympic Spirit to Ram Obamacare Through Congress

Barack Obama congratulated the athletes who participated in the Olympic Games today during his Weekly Address. Then he immediately pressed Republicans to use that indomitable Olympic spirit to ram Obamacare through Congress.
WhiteHouse.gov reported:

As the Winter Olympics draw to a close this weekend, I just want to take a minute to congratulate all the athletes who competed in these games. And I especially want to say how proud I am of all the American men and women have achieved over the last few weeks…

…The indomitable Olympic spirit that says no matter who you are or where you come from or what difficulties you may face, you can work hard and train hard and still triumph in the end. That is why we watch. That is why we cheer. That is why in the middle of an extremely challenging time for America, we’ve been able to come together as one nation for a few weeks in February and swell with pride at what our citizens have achieved.

Now, when it comes to meeting the larger challenges we face as a nation, I realize that finding this unity is easier said than done – especially in Washington. But if we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s games, we need to find common ground. We need to move past the bickering and the game-playing that holds us back and blocks progress for the American people…

We need that same spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship when it comes to finally passing reform that will bring down the cost of health care and give Americans more control over their insurance. On Thursday, we brought both parties together for a frank and productive discussion about this issue. In that discussion, we heard many areas of agreement. Both sides agreed that the rising cost of health care is a serious problem that plagues families, small businesses, and our federal budget…

no final bill will include everything that everyone wants. That’s what compromise is. I said at the end of Thursday’s summit that I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge. The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

It is time for us to come together. It is time for us to act. It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations. So let’s get this done.

Thanks for listening.

Let’s get this done = Let’s ram it through.

The AP added this on Obama’s message:

Obama and the Democrats reject the piecemeal approach sought by Republicans and have no intention of scrapping their 10-year, $1 trillion bill and starting over, as the GOP demands.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Obamateurism of the Day

Sometimes, when a speaker tries telling a story to illuminate a point they want to make, they end up illuminating themselves more than any moral of their tale. Barack Obama fell into that trap yesterday during the health-care summit when he tried to argue that some insurance policies are not equal. As if that wasn’t obvious enough, President Obama then made it clear that he doesn’t get it at all. Greg Hengler captures the moment for Townhall:

When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won’t name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company — let’s call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I’d like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn’t serious insurance.

Now, it’s one thing if you’ve got an old beat-up car that you can’t get fixed. It’s another thing if your kid is sick, or you’ve got breast cancer.

Why would they have laughed at a Harvard graduate who tried to file a claim? Because Obama hadn’t bought collision insurance. The only insurance drivers in most states have to carry is liability insurance, to cover damage they do to the cars of other drivers. Obama explained in this clip that he only bought the legal minimum, not collision or comprehensive, which would have covered his damage. When people buy insurance, it’s made very clear exactly what it covers. Most drivers can understand it … even the Harvard Law grads. That may have been why “Acme” laughed when Obama attempted to file a collision claim when he hadn’t bothered to buy that policy.

One more point: a rear-end collision is almost universally presumed to be the fault of the driver who hits the rear end of the other. Obama should have been calling that driver’s insurance company … if this actually ever happened at all.

If this anecdote proves anything, it’s that Obama never learned a thing about insurance — hardly the man we’d want to have remaking the entire health-insurance sector.

hotair.com

President Obama Picks His Nose on Live TV

Protesters Rally Against Obamacare at Blair House

Hundreds of anti-Obamacare protesters rallied today outside of the Blair House during the bipartisan nationalized health care talks:

Americans for Prosperity rallies outside of the Blair House to send a message to those at President Obama’s “health care summit” that they should keep their “Hands off Our Health Care.”



gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Re-branding the government: Obama, TMP, and logo-mania

I’ve gotten tons of e-mails over the last several days regarding the new Obama-fied logo for the Missile Defense Agency (it was unveiled last fall).

If you go to the DOD/MDA’s website here, you’ll see both the new logo at the top and the old logo at the bottom.

Free Republic first noticed the similarity to the Obama campaign logo. Weasel Zippers, Political Wrinkles, JWF, and other blogs have picked up on it.

It’s not worth blowing a gasket over, but the re-branding of the government is a rather aggravating and noteworthy fact of life in the Age of Obama. They do spend an awful lot of time packaging and repackaging bureaucracies and the business of governance — instead of actually, you know, governing.

The ad agency that re-designed the MDA logo is TMPGovernment. Here’s the company’s bulging portfolio.

Surprise, surprise (h/t Weasel Zippers): They also re-re-designed the Porkulus/Wreckovery.gov website.

One of TMPGovernment’s VP’s ruminates on branding Uncle Sam.

TMP’s VP of digital strategy is an unabashed cheerleader for the Obama campaign’s social marketing strategy.

Shiny, happy designers for a design-obsessed administration.

***

A reader writes: “Pretty logo. Too bad we still do not have a real full protection missile defense.”

And great comments from thread below:

southsideironworks said: “It’s not how you govern, it’s how you look when pretending to do so.”

ThatSamIAm said: “Obama has more logos than legitimate politcal achievements.”

MarcoPolo said: “No doubt 180 jobs were saved with the redesign of that logo!”

***

I see the Drudge Report has now picked up on this:

Another reader writes in: “I have spent a large portion of the last 11 years working missile defense while Clinton and Bush were in office. I also grew up in a rural area, and am familiar with what happens to cattle when they are ‘branded.’ I find it interesting that in Obama’s first year in office, he has pulled out of the European missile defense plans, cut the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program, cut the Multiple Kill Vehicle Program, drastically cut the Ground-based Midcourse Defense Program, and gutted the MDA in general. Based on this the new logo should have simply been the old logo with a giant NO symbol over the top of it. When you brand cattle, you tie the animals legs to keep it from doing anything. Then, in addition to the branding, if the animal is male, you also castrate it. I think this is highly applicable to Mr. Obama’s ‘re-branding’ of MDA….”

michellemalkin.com

Jimmy Carter Upset About Being Compared To Obama

You’d think it would be the Obama administration that would be cringing at comparisons to Jimmy Carter, but in reality it’s the former one-term President who was ultimately booted from office by a landslide election victory for Ronald Reagan, who is insulted by the comparison.

In last month’s issue of Foreign Policy magazine, leading analyst and Iraq War supporter Walter Russell Mead opined that President Obama’s foreign policy agenda was turning into a duplicate of Jimmy Carter’s.

The thesis was beyond speculative. Even by Mead’s own admission, Obama’s foreign policy is in its nascent stages. Right now, he writes, it “looks a little bit like that of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.” Mead even suggests that the president is trying to pursue a “Jeffersonian” worldview—in which the U.S. is militarily formidable but unexposed to regional crises. Either way, the Carter comparison was clearly meant as an insult. After all, the piece was titled “The Carter Syndrome.”

It would seem natural for Obama and his allies to find the piece somewhat insulting—but the one raising the most stink so far is Carter himself.

You know things are bad when Jimmy Carter doesn’t want his legacy tarnished by comparisons to you.

sayanythingblog.com

Another Billboard… “How’s That Hope and Change Working For You?”

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa– “How’s that hope and change working for you?”
Via Story Balloon:

This follows the “Impeach Obama” billboard in Wisconsin, the “Miss Me Yet?” billboard in Minnesota, and the “Marxist” billboard in Missouri.
It looks like there’s a trend developing here in the Midwest.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

BIG FAIL. One Year Ago Today Stimulus Signed into Law- Since Then US Lost 2.74 Million Jobs

Of course, the president has frequently altered his message since the bill was signed into law:

President Obama changes course on the stimulus. Where are the jobs? Oama promised to create 4,000,000 jobs with the $747 Stimulus Bill.
Instead the US has lost over 2,740,000 jobs.

Republican leader John Boehner wrote the obvious today– Taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth.

More:

Just 6% of Americans Believe Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus Created Jobs

In December the Obama Administration announced they had “saved or created” 1.1 million jobs.

In January the Obama Administration announced they had “saved or created” 2 million jobs.
Too bad for Obama that Americans aren’t buying his “saved or created” nonsense.

Just 6% of Americans believe the $787 “stimulus” boondoggle created any jobs according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll.

Just 6%.

It must be Bush’s fault.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Obama Statue Removed from Indonesian Park

Indonesian authorities have removed a statue of Barack Obama from a park in Jakarta:

The bronze statue, inspired by a childhood photograph of a 10-year-old Barack Obama in shorts with a butterfly perched on an outstretched thumb, was moved on Monday to the nearby school the US president attended as a child.

It had been targeted by critics since it was erected in the Jakarta park last December.

Detractors argued that an Indonesian hero should have been honoured instead, noting that Mr Obama still could pursue policies that hurt the interests of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Source: UK Telegraph via HotAir

What else can go wrong for the Obama administration?

By the way, that is a statue of Barry Soetero, not Barack Obama.

obamafailblog.net

Previously:

Indonesia mulls tearing down Obama statue

U of Alabama killer Amy Bishop was ‘obsessed’ with Obama

As authorities searched for clues into what could have sent a University of Alabama neurobiology professor on an alleged killing spree, friends and family yesterday described Braintree native Amy Bishop as an awkward introvert on the brink of losing her teaching job.

Bishop’s husband, James Anderson, told the Herald his wife had been fighting the university for over a year about a tenure denial, and several months ago received a final decision. She was upset, but not overly emotional, approaching her appeal “like a game of chess,” he said.

Police in Huntsville, Ala., charged Bishop, 44, with capital murder after she allegedly opened fire on six colleagues at a faculty meeting Friday, killing three. Afterward, she calmly called her husband and asked him to pick her up as if nothing had happened, said police Chief Henry Reyes.

“She was an oddball - just not very sociable,” said Sylvia Fluckiger, a former lab technician who worked with Bishop in 1993.

Bishop acknowledged at the time being questioned in the bombing attempt of a Harvard medical doctor evaluating her on doctorate work, a professor with whom Bishop was known to quarrel, Fluckiger said.

Reyes confirmed he is working with the FBI to learn more about why Bishop was a suspect in the attempted bombing of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, who received a double-pipe bomb in the mail on Dec. 19, 1993. He ran from his Newton home with his wife, escaping without injury. The bomb never exploded.

“She was quite cavalier about it,” Fluckiger said of Bishop’s description of her interview with police. She said Bishop “grinned” as she described being asked by cops whether she’d ever taken stamps off an envelope and fastened them onto something else. “I cannot tell you what the grin meant,” Fluckiger said.

Seven years prior, Bishop shot her brother to death in Braintree in an incident that was ruled an accident at the time.

But Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier has raised questions about the handling of the case, and officials are investigating missing records in the 1986 death of 18-year-old Seth Bishop.

A classmate of Seth Bishop’s recalled yesterday that the boy, who was “painfully shy,” never talked about his older, only sibling.

“It was as if he was a complete stranger in her life. It seemed like a dysfunctional family. We just accepted them as being odd,” said the classmate, who spoke to the Herald on condition of anonymity.

Amy Bishop, he said, “wasn’t mean because she wasn’t someone you could get close to. She wasn’t an attractive girl, she didn’t have friends. She didn’t work at having friends. I think people probably, over time, learned to leave her alone.”

The Bishop household, he said, “was anything but a home . . . It was just a really dreary, dark place where there wasn’t a lot of love.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Anderson said he was searching for the “trigger” to his wife’s breakdown, and that he wondered whether an e-mail message - potentially in the form of a final tenure denial - might have upset her, because university higher-ups were known to send “nastygrams” on Fridays.

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

Read More

More:

Socialist Obama-Supporting Alabama Professor Shot 3 Colleagues Dead, Shot Her Brother Dead, Robbed Auto Dealership With Shotgun & Was Suspect in Attempted Harvard Bombing

Amy Bishop shot and killed Gopi K. Podila, Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson, all professors in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama’s Huntsville campus, Friday after a meeting on tenure.

Amy Bishop, a socialist, also shot and killed her 18 year-old brother during an argument in 1986 at point blank range. She shot at him 3 times. Police released Bishop in 1986 after they received a call from district attorney William Delahunt, now Rep. William Delahunt.

Ken Pittman, the voice of reason from WBSM in Massachusetts, did some digging this weekend and found out more about Amy Bishop including this– She robbed an auto dealership with a shotgun after she killed her brother:

Most of the files pertaining to the shooting death of eighteen year old Seth Bishop in the kitchen of his Hollis Ave Braintree home are missing.

Here is what we do know. There was an argument only recently brought to light between Seth and his nineteen year old sister Amy that was left out of many documents in the report. Shortly after the argument, Amy fired a loaded shotgun which struck Seth at point blank range in his chest and tore the aorta of his heart, killing him.

We know that Amy then went to Dave Dinger Ford and according to Thomas Pettigrew who was working in the garage, told the Boston Herald that Bishop put a shotgun against his chest and demanded a vehicle. Pettigrew said Bishop claimed she and her husband were in a fight and he was coming after her. She was arrested in the parking lot when she exited the garage, surrounded by police with guns drawn.

She was brought to the Braintree police department where she was being booked and suddenly per direct order of Chief Polio, the booking process was ordered to stop. The Braintree Officers were inexplicably ordered to release Amy to the custody of her parents.

We know the circumstances of what happened in the kitchen show inconsistancies between Amy’s and Judith’s statements in the Massachusetts State Police REPORT

It sounds like there was a massive coverup somewhere along the line.

Amy Bishop was also a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993,

Previously:
Socialist Professor Amy Bishop Who Killed 3 Profs Yesterday Shot & Killed Her Brother in 1986 …UPDATE: Dem Rep. Delahunt Made Call to Release Bishop in 1986

UPDATE: Amy Bishop is also a far left Obama radical who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Barack Obama Mocked at This Year’s Mardi Gras Parade

One Mardi Gras float pictured Barack Obama in hellfire this year.

Mary Rose Rybak at First Thoughts reported on the floats in this year’s New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. One float “Experiment of His Own Power” mocked America’s arrogant president.

Mardi Gras has become a celebration of vice before forty days of, well, supposed virtue. It’s one of those fun curiosities about the culturally Christian world: People eat and drink gluttonously as a sort of religious observance.

One of the ways vice is simultaneously vilified and celebrated is on the floats that parade through New Orleans, filled with masked people who throw beads and toys to the passersby. In one parade this year, spectators enjoy a hilarious twenty-float lineup of what one might call winners of the Greatest Vices of the Year: Senator Edwards, Senator Vitter, and Governor Sanford are spotlighted on a lust-themed float as “Politicians Gone Wild!”; New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nabin is painted “asleep at the wheel,” accused of negligence and bad time management on a sloth-themed float; and Bernard Madoff appears on a pyramid as “Pharaoh Made-off” on a greed-themed float that describes him as “the modern-day Judas who was traitor to his own tribe for only 20 million pieces of silver.”

Among these scandalous float figures is President Barack Obama.

On a pride-themed float called “Experiment of His Own Power,” Obama is compared to “The Proud One” of Dante’s Inferno, posing with his Nobel Peace Prize medal, next to several other representations of him—along with Oscar and Heisman Trophy awards, he appears as a five-star general, president of General Motors, and as the “healthcare-expert” Surgeon General—all engulfed by the flames of hell.

Is this the rant of a few comic float-makers, or is it a sign of a graver discontent Obama faces from the American people? For many, it’s looking grim: The effect his leadership has had on Katrina recovery-efforts, for instance, is at least as questionable as the promised improvements in foreign policy and economic stimulus.

In related news… After destroying the economy and tripling the national debt his first year in office, a majority of Americans believe that Barack Obama does not deserve a second term.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Las Vegas Mayor Blows Off Meeting With Obama

And not in the oblique, “scheduling conflicts” way politicians usually handle snubs like this but rather in a full-blown “Obama is a slow learner” way.

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) - Mayor Oscar Goodman has refused an invitation to meet with President Obama when he arrives in town on Thursday. Mayor Goodman called President Obama a slow learner after he told Americans not to blow money on a weekend in Las Vegas if they were saving to put their kids through college.

“I’ve got other things to do quite frankly for my constituents here in Las Vegas who rely on me to do the right thing as a mayor,” explained Mayor Goodman.

Mayor Goodman has more important things like attend budget meetings during a major shortfall than meet with President Barack Obama when he visits Las Vegas Friday, even though he’s invited by the White House.

“Were you surprised to get that invitation in light of comments you’ve made before and your opinion on him and what he says,” asked Action News reporter Heather Klein.

“A little bit in the sense I would think they would know that I would say I’m not coming,” said Mayor Goodman.

Who would have thought a year ago that not only would Obama be kryptonite for campaigning Democrats, but that he couldn’t even secure a meeting with a mayor.

sayanythingblog.com

Comics

“Impeach Obama” Billboard Spotted in Wisconsin

An “Impeach Obama” sign was spotted on Highway 41 outside of Green bay, Wisconsin this week. It’s become a popular place to pull over and snap a picture. The billboard will be up for at least 6 months.
FOX 11 reported the story:

This latest billboard follows the “Miss Me Yet” billboard in Minnesota and the Marxist billboard in Missouri.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Barack Obama: Americans Are Tired of Politicians Who “Talk the Talk But Won’t Walk the Walk” on Fiscal Responsibility

Yes. He said it with a straight face.

Barack Obama tripled the federal budget deficit last year. He will likely top that this year. Just yesterday he signed legislation that authorized the US government to increase the debt by $1.9 trillion.

Today, Barack Obama had the gall to lecture America on politicians who, “Talk the talk but won’t walk the walk on fiscal responsibility.”
Unreal.



gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

Obama Suddenly “Agnostic ” About Tax Hikes For Americans Making Less Than $250,000

Welcome to Obama’s “read my lips” moment.

Remember when Obama was vowing not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000/year? Obama said during his first State of the Union address, “if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime.” During his campaign too he was making the same promise:

Now, suddenly, Obama is “agnostic” about raising taxes on Americans making less than $250,000/year?

President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.

Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

“The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.”

Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and households earning less than $250,000 a year.

sayanythingblog.com

Stuck Accelerator...

Michelle Obama plays the “national security” card

Liberals are funny.

Everything is a “national security” issue to them…except, well, national security.

Global warming is a national security issue.

Health care reform is a national security issue.

And now, First Lady Michelle Obama is pushing her anti-obesity platform as a national security issue. Via CNSNews (hat tip: Doug Powers):

At a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the ‘Let’s Move’ campaign to end childhood obesity in the United States, an epidemic she said is costly and a threat to national security.

“A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year,” Mrs. Obama said. “This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.”

The ceremony, attended by many officials of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, followed the signing earlier in the day of a presidential memorandum establishing a task force to study the problem and make recommendations after 90 days.

Obama announced a long list of goals she said she hopes the “Let’s Move” campaign will accomplish, including many that can be done “in a generation.”

As I reported last week, the underlying security that this campaign is really concerned with is fattening Big Labor membership rolls and payrolls.

Union security, not national security.

michellemalkin.com

Video flashback: Obama botched “corpseman” before

Turns out it wasn’t just a one-off flub. President Obama mispronounced “corpseman” before last week’s gaffe-a-thon….on October 26, 2009 during a speech to graduates of the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.

Reader Chris P. sends the video and e-mails: “Doesn’t Obama have any military advisors, Democrat Senators or anyone who saw the speech and heard him say ‘corpse-man?’ The mispronunciation is stark and grating to me as a former soldier. Why didn’t anyone correct their boss? If they don’t feel empowered to speak up on something so minor what about bigger matters?”

michellemalkin.com

Poll: People don't want Obama's new regulations

A new Gallup poll, taken after Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to advocate a series of new government regulations, finds that most Americans are worried about giving the federal government new regulatory powers, and a large majority do not want to see the government become more involved in regulating and controlling business.

Gallup asked, "Which worries you more? Too much regulation of business by the government or not enough regulation of business by the government?" Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed say they're more worried about too much government regulation, while 37 percent say they're more worried by not enough regulation. (Six percent say they have no opinion.)

Then Gallup asked, "Which of the following do you most agree with -- the federal government should become more involved in regulating and controlling business, the federal government should become less involved in regulating and controlling business, or things are about right the way they are?" Fifty percent say the government should become less involved, versus 24 percent who say it should become more involved, and 23 percent who say things are about right the way they are.

There are striking differences between the political parties when it comes to regulation, but the Gallup survey suggests the issue tilts in the Republicans' favor; Republicans, and people who lean Republican, are quite united in their opposition to more regulation, while Democrats, and people who lean Democratic, are significantly less united in their support of it. (The poll did not give results for independents.)

For example, 76 percent of Republicans say the government should become less involved in regulation, while just 36 percent of Democrats say the government should become more involved. Looking at it from the other end, just 13 percent of Republicans say the government should become more involved, while 27 percent of Democrats say it should become less involved. Thirty-three percent of Democrats say things are about right the way they are, versus 11 percent of Republicans. However you look at it, far more people favor less or the same amount of regulation than favor more regulation.

Interpreting its findings, Gallup notes that in the State of the Union, Obama "mentioned the need to institute a fee on the biggest banks in order to continue to recover money given to banks; a proposal to slash tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas; instituting new regulations for financial institutions in order to provide more information to consumers; financial reforms that would affect lobbyists; and the healthcare reform effort that entails a great deal of government involvement in the nation's healthcare system. While the American public may favor some of these initiatives on an individual basis, the current results underscore the degree to which the average American in a general sense is concerned about too much government involvement in business."

That's a dry way of saying Obama and his Democratic allies are going to have a hard time winning the sort of wide-ranging new regulations they want to impose on American economic life.

washingtonexaminer.com

Team Obama Blows $2.5 Million On 30 Second US Census Commercial

Your taxpayer dollars at work…
The Obama Administration blew $2.5 million on a Superbowl Census commercial.

It’s not even a good ad. But, who cares? It’s not their money.

Sean Hannity reported on the Super Bowl ad last week:

The U.S. Census Bureau is dishing out $2.5 million to pay for a 30-second commercial this Sunday. But that is just a small part of the census ad campaign. Now according to the USA Today when it’s all said and done, they would have blown $340 million on their efforts to encourage people to cooperate with the census.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

More: Census Super Bowl ad flops

The U.S. Census Bureau’s “Snapshot of America” Super Bowl 44 ad has met with harsh criticism from television writers, media pundits and the Kellogg School of Management, which gave the Census ad an “F” grade — the lowest of any commercial that ran during Sunday’s game.

Television critics charge that the Census ad, which cost $2.5 million and was directed by independent filmmaker Christopher Guest (whose comedies include “Best in Show,” “For Your Consideration” and 1984’s seminal mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap”), was dry, uninformative, and culturally obscure.

“Is the U.S. Census’s biggest problem making sure that fans of ironic indie movies don’t ignore the Census?” Wrote Time magazine’s James Poniewozik in his review of the Super Bowl ads. Twitter user Steven Miller echoed the sentiment: “If you drew a Venn diagram of ‘Christopher Guest Comedy Fans’ and ‘People Unaware of the Census’ they wouldn’t overlap.”

Derek Rucker, who is the Richard M. Clewett Research Professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, wrote that the Census ad “fell flat and didn’t live up to the strategic framework” that its pre-game buzz promised, and gave the ad an “F” ranking, just below Focus on the Family’s Tim Tebow ad, which received a “D.”

USA Today’s ad meter compiled the responses of 250 adult participants in McLean, Va., and San Diego, Calif., by “electronically chart[ing] their second-by-second reactions to ads during the Super Bowl.” Among this test group, the Census spot placed 52nd out of 63 ads.

John Zirinsky, a senior analyst at the Lombardo Consulting Group, spent some time testing a potential ad for this year’s Super Bowl, using focus groups, in-depth interviews, and “just about every contemporary methodology.” His take on the Census ad is that it failed several essential tests for a successful Super Bowl ad.

“The first, most basic criteria for a successful ad is that it must be understood—on some level—by those watching. Especially in the environment of the Super Bowl, where attentions are often so diverted, it is important that people easily “get” the ad. Next, the ad must have a hook—with Super Bowl spots, these are often humorous—that makes people notice and remember the ad. Finally, what the best ads do—and this is often cited as a key justification for the $2.5 to $3 million 30 second buys—is that it generate buzz. (Think about the first GoDaddy spot from a few years back: the ads had awful production values and weren’t something you’d rewatch but it was straightforward, memorable and within a couple weeks everyone knew what GoDaddy was.)”

Zirinsky doesn’t buy the theory that “chatter” about how “awful and wasteful the spot was” will “provide some buzz for the Census.” He doesn’t think that’s what the Census had in mind, as gaining traction by annoying viewers “would be a rather perverse outcome.”

Salon’s Mike Madden defended the Census ad — which, he said, “drove a lot of Republicans completely crazy” — by citing a defensive tweet from the Census Bureau arguing that “if 1% of folks watching #SB44 change mind and mail back #2010Census form, taxpayers save $25 million in follow up costs.”

It wasn’t just conservatives who objected to the ad, as evidenced by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, who wrote, “Really, Census people, that’s as good as you can do? That should cost Hollywood a Cong. Seat,” and Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Slezak, who ranked the Census spot as one of the five worst ads of the night. “How weird to hire all those funny character actors, then accidentally air an unfinished version of a commercial that left us all wondering what the frak we just watched,” Slezak wrote.

The ambiguous nature of the ad is a characteristic the Census Bureau has not only acknowledged, but defends as savvy marketing. “You may not watch it one time, walk away and completely understand it — unless you are a Christopher Guest fan,” the Census Bureau’s Kendall Johnson told CNN. In that same interview, David Griner of Luckie and Co. and AdFreak.com, wondered if the “upper middle-class, white audience” that normally responds well to Guest’s comedic style “didn’t understand the role of the census and would not have been active to take part in it.”

dailycaller.com

Harvard Law Graduate and Commander in Chief has a pronunciation problem with "Corpsman"

While speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama mispronounced the word "Corpsman" as "corpse-man."

Las Vegas Mayor: “When Obama Comes I’ll Give Him the Boot Back to Washington"

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman blasted President Obama after his attacks on his city. The outspoken mayor said, “I’ll do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington.”
Mayor Goodman says an apology won’t be acceptable this time.

Obama will be campaigning with unpopular Senator Harry Reid in Las Vegas later this month.
KTNV reported:

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman had some harsh words for President Obama Tuesday. Here’s what he had to say hours after the President remarked that people who are trying to save money shouldn’t go to Vegas.

“I guess you’ve all seen the president’s remarks or read about the president’s remarks, well I’ve got some remarks of my own. I was back in Washington, D.C. about two weeks ago, going up and down the halls of the capitol telling people about our economy here, trying to get them to be sympathetic to what we’re trying to accomplish, then I have to read what President Obama said.

“He has a real psychological hang up about the entertainment capitol of the world. An apology won’t be acceptable this time, I don’t know where his vendetta comes from but we’re not going to let him make his bones by lambasting Las Vegas, that’s why (the press) is here today.

“He didn’t learn his lesson the first time, but when he hurt our economy by his ill conceived rhetoric, we didn’t think it would happen again, but now that it has I want to assure you, when he comes I’ll do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.

“I gotta tell you this, everybody says I shouldn’t say it, but I gotta tell you the way it is. This president is a real slow learner.”

More… Opaobie added:

We know Obama never was a Boy Scout, but at least they know not to take a dump…TWICE… right where they plan to pitch their tents.

Is it time for another beer summit?

Still more… Franco added this:

If Obama was in Vegas with the national treasury he’d put a billion on a long shot on “the big wheel” and tell us he’s saving money by eating at the buffet.

gatewaypundit.firstthings.com

First Lady drags daughters into obesity campaign

Hey, whatever happened to leaving the Obama girls alone?

Charm City Moms: A blog for Maryland parents by The Baltimore Sun’s Kate Shatzkin

The Obama children and child obesity

President Barack Obama is in Baltimore today, but it’s his wife’s last pronouncement on her campaign against childhood obesity that’s caught my attention. As the president did several months ago in an education speech, First Lady Michelle Obama has taken a personal tack — divulging some private information about her children — to drive home her point about early intervention in kids’ health.

In remarks at a YMCA in Virginia, Obama said her daughters’ pediatrician warned her — some time ago, apparently — that the girls were getting “off track” in terms of body-mass index…

…The personal aspect brings the story home and helps us remember how important the message is.

On the other hand, I do wonder about the kids’ privacy factor here, and how disclosures like these could open the door to unwanted scrutiny for the first daughters…

Hasn’t stopped POTUS and FLOTUS before.

Flashback: Leave Obama’s kids alone…except when POTUS & FLOTUS need them for Obamacare

michellemalkin.com