Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

obama is forgetting when george hw bush jumped over the berlin wall on a dirt bike, landed, and shot a machine gun in the air in east berlin and said "okay, whose coming with me?"

― thee michelle boob elephant (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:51 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this was the raddest part of the 80s imo

iirc after shooting the gun into the air he chugged a pepsi

freedom should be the choice of every generation imo

andy mccarthy's freaking out about coverage of obama's first pitch. wow...:

Meet Me in St. Booie! [Andy McCarthy]

Though it's not a widely appreciated fact, we right-winger sports nuts have long known that the sports press is among the media's leftiest precincts. So I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at how little was said (as in nothing at all) about the reception President Obama received last night when he came out on the field to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the baseball all-star game in St. Louis. It was a packed house (over 50,000 in attendance), and the jeers were easily discernible.

Don't get me wrong: there was more cheering than booing. But that's to be expected: It was a festive national occasion, and most of us who disagree intensely with Obama's policies would be more apt to stand and cheer our president respectfully. That's what made the boos all the more noticeable to anyone — other than a sports journalist — who heard it.

The media fawning really is so shameless it's become self-parody. Take ESPN, for example.

Put aside the unacknowledged booing for a moment. The other embarrassing fact is that my six-year-old throws a baseball better (far better, in fact) than Obama. Yet the media went out of its way to obscure that, too — no doubt wishing to avoid unfavorable comparisons to the strike President Bush famously fired from the mound at Yankee Stadium at the 2001 World Series. In its live broadcast, Fox (and remember, this is Fox Sports, not Fox News) covered Obama's first pitch at a very weird angle that conveyed his spastic motion but didn't do justice to how pathetic the toss was. But that's nothing compared to ESPN's laughable coverage. Here's the clip. Besides reporting only that there was a "standing ovation for the commander-in-chief," the announcer made a point of noting that Obama's pitch "didn't bounce" before reaching home-plate (though the announcer did cop to the "horrible camera work that made the trajectory of the pitch impossible to see).

Now, take a look at this clip from MLB.com, about 24 seconds in. It's the only decent footage I've seen, and it shows that Obama's first pitch did bounce. In fact, the pitch did not even reach home-plate — and they evidently knew it wouldn't. The player who was sent out to catch Obama's pitch (more on that in a moment) was crouching on top of home plate, not behind it where catchers always set up. And even so, he had to reach out a couple of feet in order to short-hop the ball, which otherwise might have bounced all the way to the backstop.

Now, about that player who caught Obama's pitch: It was none other than the Cardinals' great first-baseman, Albert Pujols. What does that matter? Well, the tradition is that the first pitch is tossed to the catcher, not the first-baseman — and, in fact, the starting catcher for the National League last night was the Cardinals own Yadier Molina. But while Molina is popular, Pujols is like God in St. Louis (in fact, a fan in the stands either last night or the night before was holding a banner that said, "In Albert We Trust").

I think Obama's people knew he would get a very mixed reaction last night. His entrance was shrewdly orchestrated. The cheers and boos started as soon as he came onto the field, but he was steered immediately over to shake hands with Stan Musial — the most beloved player in the history of the Cardinals. No true St. Louis fan would boo Satan if he was shaking hands with Stan the Man. The president then went straight to the mound, where today's Stan the Man, the great Pujols, took good care of him — quickly embracing Obama right after making sure his heave looked borderline respectable ... with a little help from the cameras. Finally, Obama moved was ushered quickly over to the third-base line, where Cardinal legends Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, and Lou Brock (among others) were there to share warm-handshakes.

In the box score, as reported by the Obamedia/Sports Division, it will read like a standing-O for The One as he hurled a bull's-eye before strutting off to warm waves of adulation. If you were watching, though, Obama looked like the guy who bowled a 37.

That proves he's a Commie, right?

the strike President Bush famously fired from the mound at Yankee Stadium at the 2001 World Series

of course, how could we forget that historic pitch W. threw; he threw it famously.

not commie, fag. keep up.

"Though it's not a widely appreciated fact, we right-winger sports nuts have long known that the sports press is among the media's leftiest precincts."

?!?!?!

not commie, fag. keep up

Oh sorry, it's Bill Plaschke that's the communist.

the liberal sports-media elite

http://ebar.com/images/articles/marcus_cigardudes_3108.jpg

And that Chicago White Sox jacket Obama was wearing clearly symbolized his close ties to the corrupt Chicago democratic political machine no matter the explanation he gave to the Fox broadcasters

fwiw jim goddamn rome is blabbing abt obama's pitch and how important it is not to bounce a presidential pitch

clearly in the tank for obama

mccarthy's posts make much more sense if you imagine them being barked out of an open office window by a shirtless dude pointing a .45 at his own head

You mean that's not how he does that?

Exhuming McCarthy

LOL

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODg2MWNmNzk1MjllNzlmMGQ4NDlkYWYzOGExMTM3OWQ=

holy fuck alive

It certainly does reawaken my interest.

and my sense of wonder

oh that's from 06! still, wow.

Are we living in an inside-out black hole?

derb honey i don't even know anymore

wau

Yeah, Derbyshire had actually first heard about that the year before courtesy of yours truly and talked about it:

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_03_06_corner-archive.asp#057835

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_03_13_corner-archive.asp#058247

Consider too this post in response to that:

http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2005/03/party-monster.html

lmaooooo

Pardon Ed Whelan:

Fake Umpire Hiding Behind Fake Love of Baseball? [Ed Whelan]

Pardon the baseball fan in me:

President Obama says he’s a longtime fan of the Chicago White Sox, but he calls Comiskey Field “Cominskey.” And Judge Sotomayor, in her testimony yesterday, asserted that “Few judges could claim they love baseball more than I do” and that she “grew up … watching baseball.” But a March 28, 1995, story in USA Today, titled “U.S. District judge not a baseball fan,” stated that Sotomayor “grew up a few miles from Yankee Stadium but says she knows little about the sport.” And yesterday she said that “many residents of Washington, D.C. have asked me to look at the Senators” as her new team. But as even a casual baseball fan would know, the D.C. team is the Nationals, not the Senators.

i dunno, pols sports pandering is megalame

HE CALLS COMISKEY FIELD COMMIE-SKI FIELD. PROOF

smart enough to know the washington senators (the long-dead baseball team), not smart enough to know the nationals? maybe it was a brodeo kinda thing, like "you senators are my new team!"

VDH, pollster:

Not Quite So, Mr. President [Victor Davis Hanson]

I don't quite understand this comment from the president that came in response to questions about his polls, which are slipping in unaccustomed fashion:

There have been so many times, during my political career ... where people have said, 'Boy, this is make or break for Obama. . . . When the stock market went down everybody was saying, 'This is a disaster.' And what I found is that as long as we are making good decisions, thinking always what's . . . best for the American people, that, eventually, as long as we're persistent and we're listening to the American people, that things get done.

But wait, the September 2008 stock market meltdown was not a "make or break for Obama," but rather a political godsend of the first order. At the time of the meltdown, he was still in some polls slightly trailing McCain, who was still coming off a strong convention.

Take away the stock market's sudden crash, and the race would have been 50/50 to the wire. And so, with all due respect, I doubt that even one Obama supporter ("everybody?") was saying of the sudden panic that hit Wall Street that this was "a disaster" for a liberal, anti-business Democrat, who quickly offered the obligatory populist rhetoric about greed and spread the wealth — and so suddenly surged ahead.

07/22 12:21 PMShare

Re: Not Quite So... [Rich Lowry]

Victor, I think Obama is probably referring to the stock market slide early in his presidency.

07/22 12:39 PMShare

I love it when they call each other out

Me too. It's the best.

Not a Fan, Now More than Ever [Jay Nordlinger]
Obviously, I am not a fan of President Obama and his policies. (“Obviously,” because I am a National Review person.) But never before, until his comments on the Cambridge, Mass., cops, have I had the following thought: What a jerk.

It would be good if the president called those men and apologized — and apologized to the nation for what he did to them, in the course of his press conference. Imagine: singling out those officers, on national television, using the office of the president, etc., etc.

Obama should go back to condemning radio-talk-show hosts. (Or maybe tyrannical regimes that jail, torture, and kill innocents, willy-nilly?) (Seriously, if only he were as tough on the Castros as he is on the good policemen of Cambridge, Mass.)

(Seriously, if only he were as tough on the Castros as he is on the good policemen of Cambridge, Mass.)

IF ONLY

yeah, if only he said Fidel acted stupidly once.

G.I. Joe [John J. Miller]

The new G.I. Joe movie comes out on Friday. I haven't seen a preview, but I've watched a couple of the trailers, leafed through some of the book and comic tie-ins at the store, and checked out the website.

I keep wondering: Is G.I. Joe still an American? He used to be, back in the day. Maybe the movie will make clear that the 21st-century version is also a "real American hero," as the tagline once put it. But this is far from obvious. The old logo was red, white, and blue. Now the dominant image is black. Nobody wears green Army uniforms. Instead, the good guys appear to put on silver-plated robocop armor. Joe and his friends look like celluloid heroes without a country.

Hollywood hasn't totally given up on movies about martial courage. It just sets them in comic-book fantasy flicks, where questions of nationality and patriotism have little perch. Films about the Marines in Fallujah? Forget it, unless they're raping women and shooting children. The concept of military courage isn't dead, but its brightest displays are in movies such as 300, whose ancient setting is about as distant from our own world as possible.

Perhaps Hollywood thinks a moratorium on American patriotism is necessary in order to attract an international audience. But it would be nice if the studios and producers thought they might play a role in the public diplomacy of creating goodwill abroad. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra looks like a load of fun. It may also be another missed opportunity.

07/27 03:24 PMShare

uh

Someone needs to let someone know that "August release" =/= "a load of fun"

likely "a load" though

a steaming load of fun

still, nothing like good old american patriotism to create good will abroad. i'm getting started on that spec right now.

i'm becoming ("becoming") the bimble of political blog posting, lol sorry, but this is amazing

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTMzMmNlMzM0NGYwNTZjZTUzMTlhNjBjYWFjYzU0ODc=

"President Obama’s background as a community organizer has received far too little attention"

yes this was published today

If they shout loud enough people will notice that they already shouted.

YET today's editorial, taking a page from the late WFB Jr's dismissal of anti-Semites, raps "birthers" on the knuckles. It ends with this lolworthy graf:

Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as “people of the world,” as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A.

He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth

As opposed to the NRO, citizens of Tharg?

The USA isn't on Earth, Ned!

He's like John Kerry, Ned: he wants the world's permission slip.

As I sit here in the USA above the clouds, looking down on the puny world, I wonder at their feeble brains on that 'planet.'

these two posts seem to answer each other, somehow

Bourne (and Bond) [Maggie Gallagher]

The best evidence for the bias of Hollywood is the absence of films that encourage and reward patriotism. I don't mind the presence of lefty anti-war films. They just make me mad because they remind me of the huge, gaping absence of films celebrating the heroism of men at war.

Where are my generation's World War II films?

People are hungry for heroism. Why is this market niche so persistently never filled, or diverted into comic-book characters?

It's very hard to explain.

The Borg Blinks [Maggie Gallagher]

In "The Carrie Effect," I point out that gay-marriage advocates are like the Borg. Resistance is futile. But today the Borg blinked.

Major financial backers of same-sex marriage are cautioning gay rights groups to delay a campaign to overturn California’s ban on such unions until at least 2012.

Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, said he has been surprised by the almost unanimous opinion among political experts that a 2010 race was a bad idea.

“I expected having watched the protests and the real pain that the L.G.B.T. community had experienced that there would be some real measurable remorse in the electorate,” Mr. Solomon said, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “But if you look at the poll numbers since November, they really haven’t moved at all."

The Borg is dense sometimes.