The “beer summit” has come and gone.  To paraphrase, it was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing - a tremendous waste of time. Still, the president is not to be questioned.  If he thinks it’s a good idea to turn an idiotic gaffe into a weeklong fiasco, and then blow that up into a corny photo-op, you can rest assured that’s just what he’s going to do.

Don’t try and argue with it.  Remember, this is “the smartest president ever.”  He’s the sharpest guy in the room and he knows better than you.  So, when he shapes his screw-up into what he optimistically calls a ”teachable moment,” you’d better get to your desks, shut up, and pay attention.  The smartest, hippest, dreamiest “Prez” ever is about to lay some wisdom on you.

Yesterday, the nation held its collective breath as Obama had a beer with the parties dragged into last week’s PR disaster.   Harvard Professor and Obama buddy Henry Louis Gates was there, as was the “stupid” Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley.  Oh, and, since he can’t pass up an opportunity to get in front of the cameras, Joe Biden showed up despite his complete lack of involvement.

For his part, Obama wanted to teach us something.  No one seems to know exactly what. Supposedly, it was some kind of buzzword-heavy platitude about race relations in America – how we still have (as Dems like to say) ”a long way to go,” but maybe we can use the opportunity to “open up a dialogue.”  Whatever he was going for, it didn’t happen.  In fact, it’s rare that so much news is made out of so much nothing.

Still, here at The Robalution, we did learn a few things, and we thought we’d share them with you.

1. The president has terrible taste in beer.  If the president wants to drink bland, flavorless, foreign-owned swill that will guarantee laughter from the Europeans he so adores, Bud Light is the way to go.  Still, you’d think that somewhere among the thousands of absolutely stellar domestics we make and sell in the US, he’d be able to find something to suit the Presidential palate.  We recommend Shiner.
2. Obama is at his most uncomfortable when he’s trying to prove how relaxed he is.  Has there ever been a guy who looks more uptight when he’s trying to achieve exactly the opposite vibe?  No.  There has not.
3. There’s a cop in Cambridge who’s got some stones.  The political pressure for an apology from Sgt. Crowley must have been enormous.  Kudos to him for refusing to buckle.  It’s nice to see that it is, in fact, possible to look the president in the eye and say “No.”  Hopefully there were some Blue Dogs watching.
4. Unscripted Obama Leads To Chaos.  As always, when Barack is forced to speak off the cuff, without his teleprompter, he’s swimming in dangerous waters.  Much like his answer to the “Joe The Plumber” question, or his claims that the Selma Civil Rights march brought his parents together (when he’d actually been born four years prior,) this whole incident speaks volumes about how unprepared he is without his magic talking machine.  When the teleprompter goes out, the real Obama shows up, and his handlers start sweating.
5. Obama’s Fonzie-like inability to admit an error will be his undoing.  If, last week, he’d simply said “I spoke too soon and jumped to the wrong conclusion.  I’m sorry,”  none of this would have been necessary.  Since he can’t seem to do this, the matter stretched into a two-week debacle, costing the President political capital and points in the polls.

Where does that leave us?  Right where we started.  At least until the next time this happens – and it will.  Obama just can’t help himself.

- Robert Laurie

PS – we’re not even going to get in to the fact that Biden was drinking a non-alcoholic beer.  We assume he has some medical condition that forces the issue.  However, we can’t rule out the idea that administration officials fear a drunken Joe Biden could create a gaffe so massive that it might split the Earth in two.  Better to err on the side of caution.

Maybe you remember this picture:

It was taken last November in Philadelphia, on election day, as members of the Black Panther Party “assisted” voters by providing “security” as they cast their ballots.  They weren’t asked to be there, weren’t paid, and had nothing to do with the election.  So, why were they hanging around armed with nightsticks?  Gee, I wonder.

The matter, as you may know, was going to be the subject of a court case, charging the two men with voter intimidation, brandishing a weapon, and issuing racial threats and slurs.  None of the men involved have ever made any appearance in court.

Now, the entire matter has been tossed out of court by Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the number three man in Obama’s Department Of Justice.  The Washington Times has broken the story as a big exclusive, so I suggest you go here and read up.  It’s fascinating stuff, and yet another in a long line of Obama’s post-election quid-pro-quos.

Acorn faces voter fraud charges in 14 states?  Obama gives them $5.2 Billion in bailout money.

Auto unions instruct their membership to vote for Obama?  Obama gives them partial ownership of the car companies he ordered into bankruptcy.

Write favorable accounts of the President’s campaign for Newsweek?  Get a job in the administration. 

Intimidate voters at a polling place in Philadelphia?  Don’t worry, the administration has your back.

Just imagine if a couple of Klan members had decided to provide “security” for polling places during the last Bush election and, once elected, Bush’s DOJ had decided to drop intimidation charges.  The outcry would have been massive, instantaneous, and completely justified.  The only difference here is the simple fact that the bleeding hearts are silent.

Remember:  It’s only intimidation if it doesn’t help Obama.  Otherwise, it’s called ”voter assistance.”  Please, make a note of it.

-Robert Laurie

It looks like, as we predicted a couple weeks ago, the Obama birth certificate story just isn’t going to go away. Clearly, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs wishes it would but after CNN’s Lou Dobbs reported, without sources, that the original long-form document was destroyed, Gibbs’ hopes have been dashed.

Gibbs was actually forced to comment on the matter during a press conference Monday, where he called the birth certificate rumors as “made up, fictional, nonsense.”  He went on to claim that there is literally nothing that would ever change the minds of those who believe that Obama has not produced sufficient evidence of his citizenship.

The problem is, as usual, that Gibbs has ignored the facts of the question in order to produce his patented jovial, buffoonish answer.  If you read what the “Birthers” have written, the VAST majority of them WILL be convinced by the release of the Hawaiian Long-Form birth certificate that the administration claims is on file in the state’s archives. 

That’s it.  One piece of paper will end the discussion.  Dobbs now claims it was destroyed.  Obama claims it’s on file.  Soldiers are using it’s absence as a reason not to go to war. 

All the president has to do is ask Hawaii to produce it.

At The Robalution, we’ve never been 100% convinced that the “Birthers” arguments anything more than conspiracy theory, but the story is interesting, and continues to gain traction.  Since the answer is so simple, wouldn’t it be easier to just put the documents out there and end the rumors?

-Robert Laurie

John Conyers has been a busy guy lately. When he’s not working feverishly to keep his wife from going to jail on bribery charges, he spends most of his time trying to ram Obama’s health care bill down our throats.  Unfortunately, like most Dems these days, he took some time to give a speech the other day and, in doing so, shoved his foot in his mouth big time.

When questioned about the health care package, and specifically about whether lawmakers had read it, Conyers responded:  “I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill.  What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

So, John Conyers is claiming that he’s too busy to read (not to mention incapable of understanding) one of the most important pieces of legislation this country will ever face?  That inspires some real confidence, doesn’t it?

Maybe more disturbing is his inability to find two lawyers that can help him out.  If, in a town like Washington D.C.,  Conyers can’t spot a pair of legal eagles who’d be willing to help him read the bill, no wonder he wasn’t sharp enough to notice all those envelopes full of cash his wife was accepting in the parking lot of McDonalds.

John?  We’re not paying you to simply bow down at the Obama alter.  Nor are we interested in watching you abdicate your responsibilities in order to keep your wife out of the slammer. Michigan and the rest of the country deserve better than some old, confused coot who thinks it’s hilarious that he’s expected to actually do his job. 

If you’re not willing to carry out your office honorably, get the hell out of it.

-Robert Laurie

Much to the chagrin of all the bitter dems who sent gloating emails regrading the lack of updates last week, The Robalution is set to return.

Where did we go? 

Well, Rob was a groomsman this weekend.  Y’see, here in Michigan we have a magical place called “Up North.”  In the winter it’s devoted mostly to tearing around the forest on a snowmobile, but the rest of the year it’s all about drinking and shooting delicious animals.  

Everyone has a different definition of where Up North starts, but rational people seem to agree that you aren’t really there until you pass the Midland, Bay City, Saginaw area.  For us, “Up North” consisted of a five day bachelor party in a Grayling lodge, then three days on historic Mackinac Island for the ceremony.

That meant we had 5 days without TV news, and a full week without an internet connection.  We could have finagled a way to update the site via cell phone, but opted to take a media breather – something we highly recommend.

We’ll be back tomorrow with fresh updates, but in the meantime we’d like to wish the happy couple well, hope they enjoy their honeymoon, and leave you with a nice portrait of the groom.