Camus and Sartre Friendship Troubled by Ideological Feud

At Der Spiegel, "Philosophical Differences: The Falling-Out of Camus and Sartre":

Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, two of the most important minds of the 20th century, were closely entwined throughout their careers. On the centenary of Camus' birth, SPIEGEL looks back at their famous friendship and the ideological feud that ultimately unraveled it.

What is a famous man? Albert Camus wrote in his diary in 1946 that it was "someone whose first name doesn't matter." That certainly applies to Camus, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Nov. 7, and it can also be said of his great adversary Jean-Paul Sartre, who was eight years older than him, yet outlived him by 20 years.

Camus and Sartre were the intellectual stars of Paris during the postwar years: the existentialists, the Mandarins and the literary vanguard. They became iconic figures of the ideological conflicts of the second half of the 20th century. Their rivalry shaped intellectual debates in France and around the world.

Camus and Sartre's falling-out in the summer of 1952, which was played out in full view of the public, was a signal, a political watershed. The rupture, in the midst of the Cold War, split the camps. For decades, people would say: Sartre or Camus? Should we hope for a better world in the distant future at the price of accepting state terror? The revolutionary mass politics espoused by Sartre in the name of Marxism would seem to contain this tradeoff. Or should we refuse to sacrifice people for an ideal, as Camus' humanist principles required?

Camus and Sartre basically stood in each other's way right from the beginning. They were both storytellers, playwrights and essayists, literature and theater critics, philosophers and editors in chief. They had the same publisher. They both were awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Camus felt overwhelming gratitude when he accepted his award in 1957. Sartre loftily declined the designation in 1964 - making sure to underscore that he was not insulted "because Camus had received it before me," as he said at the time.

The Company of Women

And there was another -- at first glance unremarkable -- commonality. Both preferred the company of women to that of men. "Why women?" Camus wondered in his diary in 1951. His answer: "I cannot stand the company of men. They flatter or they judge. I can stand neither of the two." Back in 1940, Sartre used nearly the same choice of words in his diary when noting that he "gets horribly bored in the company of men," yet "it's very rare for the company of women not to entertain me."

They were long seen as friends and allies. But Camus could not hide that he felt a growing sense of distance from the clique of Parisian intellectuals surrounding Sartre and his companion, Simone de Beauvoir. No matter how much he debated with the others, and spent long nights drinking, dancing and seducing, he remained the wistful loner.

Sartre was envious of the idolized and good-looking French Algerian, the "street urchin from Algiers," as he later called him. Sartre saw himself as a child of the French bourgeoisie -- and he strove to break its bonds as demonstratively as possible. By contrast, Camus was proud of his humble origins and never denied his roots.

The two ambitious men met personally for the first time in the midst of the war, in occupied Paris during the summer of 1943. Camus introduced himself on the occasion of the premiere of Sartre's play "The Flies." At the time, a small group of artists and philosophers met regularly in private homes and in the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the heart of Paris. But rivalries soon surfaced, long before the public was privy to any intellectual competition. The conflict, no surprise, often had to do with women.

Sartre once asked himself if he didn't seek out women's company "to free myself from the burden of my ugliness." In early 1944, he wrote a letter to his lifelong companion de Beauvoir, informing her of his victory over ladies' man Camus. It had to do with a certain Tania, whose sister put in a good word for him: "What are you thinking, running after Camus? What do you want from him?" he'd had the sister tell her. He, Sartre, was so much better, she'd said, and such a nice man.

Continue reading.

Video c/o The Libertarian.

Time-Lapse Video of Navy Aircraft Carrier Gerald Ford

The video's from WSJ, and at Wikipedia, "USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)":

PCU [Pre-commissioning Unit] Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is to be the lead ship of its class of United States Navy supercarriers. As announced by the U.S. Navy on 16 January 2007, the ship is named after the 38th President of the United States Gerald R. Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier Monterey in the Pacific Theater.

The keel of Gerald R. Ford was laid down on 13 November 2009.[2] Construction began on 11 August 2005, when Northrop Grumman held a ceremonial steel cut for a 15-ton plate that will form part of a side shell unit of the carrier. It was christened on 9 November 2013. The schedule calls for the ship to join the U.S. Navy’s fleet in 2016. Gerald R. Ford will enter the fleet replacing the inactive USS Enterprise (CVN-65), which ended its 51 years of active service in December 2012.

More at that top link.

RELATED: Marty Erdossy, Captain, US Navy (Retired), at Forbes, "Why Does the United States Only Have Eleven Aircraft Carriers?"

Looting Hits Phillippines Amid Widespread Damage from Supertyphoon Haiyan

At the Wall Street Journal, "Looting on Storm-Hit Island Prompts Calls for Martial Law."

Also, "Philippines Left Reeling in Wake of Storm":

ORMOC CITY, Philippines—Supertyphoon Haiyan left a central region of the Philippines in tatters, as authorities struggled to verify the number of dead and looting began in one of the hardest-hit cities.

In the coastal city of Tacloban, people ransacked shops, while food and medical stations were swamped by those in need. Rescue workers dug through rubble and mud in search of survivors.

President Benigno Aquino III said the city would be placed under a state of emergency to allow the central government to speed up relief and reconstruction efforts.

The typhoon, known locally as Yolanda, hit the Philippines on Friday, with fierce winds and heavy rains shredding homes, uprooting trees and flinging cars and boats.

The storm weakened as it made landfall in northeastern Vietnam early Monday, causing widespread power outages and triggering heavy rains that authorities feared may cause floods and landslides. Haiyan was expected to move inland toward the border with China.

Mr. Aquino said late Sunday the government was trying to verify the number of dead. The official toll stood at 229 but was expected to climb substantially.

The Philippine National Red Cross said the death toll could run into the thousands, adding that it was difficult to calculate the figure because the storm left bodies scattered over wide areas.

Continue reading.

Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior, Floating Hub for Radical Activism, Docks in San Francisco

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "Greenpeace's 'hippie ship' stops by S.F.'s waterfront."

Actually, these people, in Russia, have erred badly in challenging the power of the state.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Activist sits in Russian jail; family waits, worries":

The irony is cruel for Lara Litvinov. Nearly half a century ago, she and her brother, Dima Litvinov — children in a family with a long history of civil disobedience — were living in exile with their parents in Siberia. When the family emigrated from the country in 1974, they believed they had left Russian oppression behind.

Now, Dima sits in a Russian jail along with the nearly 30 other Greenpeace activists for protesting oil drilling operations in the Arctic. He has become the third generation in his family to be imprisoned in Russia.

"I didn't expect this in my life again," said his father, Pavel Litvinov, 73, who was banished to Siberia for protesting the Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. "When I took Dima and Dima, 51, has been a Greenpeace activist for nearly 25 years. "He wanted to make a difference in the world," Lara said in an interview at her home in Torrance. "Money was never important to him. He was just interested in doing what is right."

In September, Dima and other Greenpeace activists attempted to stage a demonstration against what is said to be the world's first ice-resistant oil platform. Russian authorities acted swiftly, arresting them — and two journalists — as charges are investigated.

The family is trying to stay optimistic, but Lara is scared. She has seen photographs of her brother in handcuffs and in a courtroom, standing inside a metal cage. She hears he's being kept in a 12- by 24-foot cell for 23 hours a day with only an hour outside. It's cold, and it's dark.

"There is so much that is unknown, and the Russian government is so unpredictable," she said. out of Russia, I thought I had taken them away from that country so that this could never happen."

Charged first with piracy and then with hooliganism, Dima faces the possibility of years in prison with a substantial fine...

Continue reading.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

And at American Perspectives, "Just Who Exactly Wrote Obamacare Anyway." And 90 Miles From Tyranny, "April Fools Day Came Early This Year..."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

#ObamaCare in California: 65% Say People Won't Be Able to Afford Insurance

Look, Obama took California by nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2012. If the law's not going over well here in blue state heaven, Democrats are sucking donkey balls. Big freakin' balls!

The Un-Affordable Care Act.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Californians have their doubts about healthcare law":

Cutting across partisan and racial lines, Californians as a whole were skeptical that the Affordable Care Act would live up to its name.

Sixty-five percent of respondents said people wouldn't be able to afford the health insurance they'll be required to have under the law's individual mandate. Forty percent think the program will have a negative effect on what they pay for coverage, compared with 21% who expect a positive outcome.

According to the survey, 46% of registered voters expect the Affordable Care Act to be a drag on the overall economy and 34% see an economic boost. Nearly 60% think the law's new requirements will raise healthcare costs and keep businesses from hiring more workers.

The poll was taken just as the national healthcare rollout was coming under intense criticism in Congress, even from some Democrats. Obama has apologized for the malfunctioning healthcare.gov enrollment website and for millions of Americans receiving cancellation notices because their current coverage doesn't meet all the requirements of the healthcare law.

Those consumers have directed much of their anger at Obama's repeated pledge that Americans could keep their existing insurance if they liked it.

California is running its own insurance exchange, as are 13 other states, and its online enrollment hasn't experienced nearly as many problems as the federal marketplace for 36 states. But the sticker shock from higher premiums and concerns about losing access to preferred doctors and hospitals have taken a toll.

"California has had a pretty good rollout on its exchange compared to the national one, but people here are still feeling the negative repercussions of higher costs and lost policies," said David Kanevsky of American Viewpoint, the Republican firm that helped conduct the poll for the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and The Times.

The poll was conducted jointly by American Viewpoint and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm in Washington. They surveyed 1,503 registered state voters by telephone Oct. 30-Nov. 5. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, and larger for subgroups.

For Obama and his signature law, much depends on Californians embracing the changes. California wants to enroll more than 2 million people by the end of next year in subsidized health insurance or an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for the poor.

Poll respondents said they were upbeat about the law's potential to help many of the state's 7 million uninsured. Sixty-five percent expect there will be fewer people without coverage and 67% think patients will get more access to checkups and other preventive care.

"Fundamentally, Californians are viewing the Affordable Care Act as a mixed bag," said Drew Lieberman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. "They harbor real concerns about the potential negative impact on costs and the economy."

Diana Sackett, 61, a software engineer in Pleasanton, has many of those worries even though she strongly supports the president's healthcare plan. She has battled cancer in the past and knows the value of quality health coverage. "In an advanced country like ours, everyone should be able to get the healthcare they need," Sackett said.

But she isn't optimistic that the healthcare law will stem the rising costs of medical care and fears it may even get worse with an influx of newly insured patients.

"I'm concerned it won't really address the cost problems," said Sackett, who pays for health insurance through her employer. "I think healthcare is still going to be pretty expensive."

According to the poll, the changes are being implemented at a time when voters are generally satisfied with their own healthcare. Ninety percent of respondents said they were happy with the quality of their medical care and access to their doctors.

The state's health insurance exchange, Covered California, also faces deep skepticism among its core audience.

Even uninsured Californians, who stand to benefit the most from the changes, were split. Forty-eight percent favored the law while 45% were against.

Individuals who now purchase their own policies were more negative. Forty-nine percent were opposed to the law and 44% said they were in favor.

It's not good.

Forty-percent expect the law to have a negative effect on their health insurance payments, and just 21 percent expect a positive result.

Forty-six percent of registered voters expect the law to pull down economic growth, with only 34 percent expecting an economic boost. And less than half of uninsured Californians favor ObamaCare, a number likely to go down the longer the administration's botched rollout continues.

Another day and more bad news for the Democrats. And I'll tell you, I'm all torn up over this. It's just horrible --- HORRIBLE!!!

IMAGE CREDIT: Heritage Foundation.

BONUS: At the San Jose Mercury News, "Obamacare's winners and losers in Bay Area."

Casting the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

The show's coming up one month from today!

Secretary of State John Kerry Has 'Doubts' Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone in Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

How bloody stupid.

This reminds of 22 years ago and the wild conspiracies of Oliver Stone's "JFK."

I swear leftists are the freakin' worst conspiracy theorists. And John Kerry's a flaming ghoul.

At CNN, "Kerry doubts Warren Commission report." (Via Memeorandum.)

He's clamming up now, the asshole, "Kerry won't talk about Kennedy conspiracy" (at Memeorandum).

And for a reminder, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There is no conspiracy except in the minds of radical leftists. See Gerald Posner's book, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK.

Fresno State Moves to #16 in AP's Top 25 College Football Rankings

And they're doing even better in USA Today's poll of coaches.

At the Fresno Bee, "Fresno State up to No. 14 in USA Today Coaches poll":

.@lamblock Turns out I've been sending my kid to school w/ a gang symbol t-shirt! #FresnoState #Bulldogs pic.twitter.com/jKzkOZTQIc
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 10, 2013

Fresno State moved to No. 14 in the new USA Today Coaches Top 25 football poll Sunday, a leap of three spots in one of the components that determine berths in the big-money postseason games of the BCS.

Louisville of the American Athletic Conference remained one spot ahead of the Bulldogs, with the full BCS standings due out later Sunday.

Northern Illinois, another would-be BCS buster along with the Bulldogs, fell one spot among the coaches to No. 21 while on a bye week.

Fresno State is guaranteed a berth in one of the BCS games if it remains ranked at least No. 16, is the highest from a non-automatic-qualifying conference, and ahead of a champion from an AQ conference such as the AAC.

Last week's BCS standings had the Bulldogs 16th with a .3675 average, ahead of key BCS rivals in No. 18 Northern Illinois (.3169), No. 20 Louisville (.2510) and No. 21 Central Florida (.2151).

The Bulldogs are No. 16 in the latest Associated Press Top 25, a day after they improved to 9-0 with a 48-10 victory at Wyoming.

I watched last night's game at Wyoming. It was a 48-10 blowout. See, "Fresno State football: Bulldogs skip field goal, go for glory," and "Fresno State Postgame Wrap: No. 17 Bulldogs 48, Wyoming 10."

And at the tweet above, I'm thinking perhaps my 6th-grader should retire his Fresno State Bulldogs t-shirt he's been wearing to school this semester. We don't have a big gang presence in Irvine, but sheesh, you never can be too careful these days. See, "Fresno State's Fearsome Bulldog Mascot Is Street Gang Symbol."

Chris Christie: Time Magazine's Savior for the 2016 GOP

Here's Moe Lane on Time's fat-shaming cover story, "Time Magazine attempts to fat-shame Chris Christie*."

*Hey. This is the Left’s own sensitivity rulebook. One that they expect us to follow even though they happily abandon it the second that they can go after a conservative. You have to make them live up to their own rules, which they don’t want to do and will avoid whenever possible.

I get the magazine in hard copy, and I'm more perplexed by this meme of Christie as the GOP's 2016 savior:

New Jersey voters never got to hear Chris Christie's most important speech this year, because it took place behind closed doors at a Westin hotel in Boston, where the governor laid out his not so veiled pitch for the party's 2016 nomination. "I'm in this business to win," he told the crowd of Republican leaders, according to an audio recording smuggled out of the room. "I don't know why you're in it."

It was pure Christie, combat bundled in cliche. Ever since he ousted Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in 2009, he has run the Garden State with combustible passion, blunt talk and the kind of bipartisan dealmaking that no one seems to do anymore. He doesn't claim to be an ideas man or a visionary. He's a workhorse with a temper and a tongue, the guy who loves his mother and gets it done.

All year long, Christie has presented this character he has created as the savior for the Grand Old Party. At the Boston meeting in August, he said ideologues had begun to edge out the winners in Ronald Reagan's Big Tent. (He meant you, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin.) They acted like college professors, just spouting ideas. "College professors are fine, I guess," he joked, before driving it home. "If we don't win, we don't govern. And if we don't govern, all we do is shout into the wind."

Christie then went out and won, and he won big. In a blue state, he got 61% of the vote for governor on Nov. 5. "If we can do this in Trenton, New Jersey," Christie thundered, "maybe the folks in Washington, D.C., should tune in their TVs right now, see how it's done."

It's awful early to be anointing the GOP frontrunner, and I cringe at the thought of yet another doomed Republican presidential campaign in 2016. The GOP will be crushed if they keep nominating these mealy-mouthed moderates. Damn. I checked with Dan Riehl on Twitter the other night, after I finished reading the cover story. Christie's not very conservative at all:

@AmPowerBlog his rhetoric is that of a progressive. Not libertarian on social issues, not very conservative on fiscal issues. what's 2 like?

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) November 10, 2013

The country's ready for conservative leadership in the Ronald Reagan mold. Obviously, Chris Christie's not it. Although, sadly, the JournoList media will be all too happy to foist him off on a hoodwinked electorate. Grassroots conservatives will have their job cut out keeping that from happening.

Happy 238th Birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps

At the Daily Caller, "Happy 238th Birthday Marines: A message From the Commandant of the Marine Corps":

For 238 years, The United States Marine Corps has proudly served our great Nation with unfailing valor – bolstered by the enduring fortitude of our fellow Marines, our families, and our friends. This is why each year on November 10th, Marines from all generations gather together, in groups large and small, to celebrate the birthday of our Corps and to reflect on the proud legacy and warrior ethos we share. This is what unites us as Marines. From our first battle at New Providence to today in Afghanistan, Marines have always shown that they were made of tougher stuff – that when the enemy’s fire poured in from all angles, and the situation was grim, Marines unequivocally knew that their fellow Marines would stay behind their guns, fight courageously, and drive the enemy from the battlefield. We have always known hardship, fatigue, and pain…but we have never known what it is to lose a battle!

Continue reading.

The Best Blogs Now and Some Smokin' Holly Eriksson

Ima try'n get some Rule 5 posted today. My mom visited yesterday and I'm grading semester writing projects, so my weekend blogging's been thrown off. Hopefully I can get the full babe-blogging roundup posted in a little bit.

Meanwhile, Gator Doug rounds up some of the hottest blogs happening right now, "The 25 Best Blogs Now."

That's a roundup of culture warriors, and I'm honored to be included at the list.

I'll have more of my brand blogging throughout the day and beyond.

Meanwhile, Holly Eriksson's here to help celebrate, at Egotastic!, "Holly Eriksson Topless Calendar Sneak Peek Will Fill Your Days With Smiles."



Photo via Twitter.

Name and Shame: 100 Leftist Celebrities Who've Made Millions and Billions Off the Free-Enterprise System

This is great.

Because you know leftists don't really believe their own ideological bullshit.

At Independent Journal Review, "Wall of Shame: Net Worths of 100 Left-Wing Millionaire and Billionaire Celebs":

These 100 left-wing supporters of wealth redistribution made millions and even billions off the free enterprise system. Many supported the Celebrity President himself Barack Obama, who has ironically gotten quite wealthy preaching against ‘evil’ rich people. This is just a taste of left-wing hypocrisy.

See photos of the Hypocrite 100 at the link (via Instapundit).

At Least 10,00 Feared Dead in Philippines Typhoon

At LAT, "Typhoon may have killed nearly 10,000 in Philippines."

At at WSJ, "Thousands Feared Dead in the Philippines in Wake of Typhoon: Red Cross and Authorities Fear Toll Could Rise to the Thousands":

MANILA—The Philippine National Red Cross said Sunday that the death toll from supertyphoon Haiyan could run into the thousands, adding that it is difficult to perform the grim calculations because the massive storm left bodies scattered over wide areas.

Photographs and video taken Sunday in Tacloban—a city especially hard hit—showed dead people being pulled from rubble and mud, cars and boats tossed into piles and homes shredded.

"This is a monumental disaster. As of now, there's no time to count the bodies. The dead bodies are not in one place like what happened in Ormoc," Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, told The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Gordon, a former senator, was referring to the 1991 flash floods caused by a typhoon in Ormoc City on the island of Leyte which claimed more than 5,000 lives—the most on record caused by a storm in the Philippines.

Health Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag, who was with a medical team deployed to set up three mobile hospitals in Tacloban, said the government is considering digging a mass grave to bury the dead there.

The National Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Council said the typhoon has affected more than 4.5 million people in the 36 provinces in the central Philippines and in the southern part of the main island of Luzon. It said more than 477,000 people were displaced by Haiyan and 400,000 of them are in evacuation centers.

Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda, pounded three dozen provinces in the central Philippines and the southern section of the main island of Luzon with gale-force winds that stirred five-yard-high storm surges that flooded coastal towns.

More Business Graduates Opt for Tech Over Wall Street

This is interesting.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Elite Grads in Business Flock to Tech: Harvard and Other Elite Schools Look Elsewhere as Finance Loses Its Lustre":

Elite business-school graduates are increasingly heading to work in technology over finance as the lingering aftereffects of the financial crisis—along with Wall Street's long hours and scaled-back pay—sends newly minted M.B.A.s elsewhere.

At Harvard Business School, 18% of job-seeking students landed tech-sector spots this year, up from 12% in 2012. A similar shift is under way at the business schools at Yale University and Cornell University, where the share of graduates going into tech more than doubled over the past two years.

Meanwhile, just 27% of Harvard Business School graduates took jobs in finance this year, down from 35% last year. That figure dropped to 16% from 27% at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

And at Stanford Graduate School of Business, historically a haven for digitally minded graduates, tech companies overtook financial services for the first time this year, with 32% of the class accepting tech jobs and just 26% heading into finance. Two years ago, those figures were 13% and 36%, respectively.

I thought I'd go into business and finance if I didn't get accepted to grad school in political science. Everything's all turned around nowadays. I don't consider myself a tech geek Who knows what I'd do now?

More at that top link.

Philippine Leader Fears 'Substantially' Higher Death Toll

At the Wall Street Journal, "Typhoon Death Toll to Rise 'Substantially': Philippine President: Haiyan Is the Strongest Tropical Cyclone to Strike the Philippines Since 1991":

MANILA—Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said Saturday that the death toll from supertyphoon Haiyan will be "substantially more" than officials have so far confirmed, a grim prediction as eyewitnesses reported bodies being pulled from rubble in one town where cars and trees had been tossed about.

Speaking at a televised news conference, the president declined to answer questions seeking an estimate of the number of people who had been killed.

The confirmed count is four, but one city—Tacloban, which has 220,000 residents—was hit especially hard, and one government official said at least 100 were dead. The Philippine National Red Cross said Saturday it received reports suggesting around 1,000 people died in Tacloban and about 200 in neighboring Samar province.

"It is only an estimate from the field, not validated," said Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwen Pang.

A Hong Kong-based cameraman and storm chaser who has been filming typhoons for nine years reported seeing dead bodies and looting in Tacloban.

Enlarge Image

Tacloban city, in Leyte province, central Philippines Saturday. Associated Press

"There are people pulling bodies out of the rubble, basically," said James Reynolds from Cebu on Saturday.

Mr. Reynolds said he saw people looting drugstores and electronics stores.

"It's a lawless situation," he said. "It's only going to get worse because people are going to get hungrier or thirstier, and there's not enough aid getting in."

Supertyphoon Haiyan, which had the strength of a Category 5 hurricane, is headed to Vietnam, where it is expected to make landfall in the morning.

A mother and her son walked under damaged electric cables after super Typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban city. Reuters

The typhoon hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines on Friday, with its heavy rain and winds uprooting trees, shredding homes, and causing five-yard high storm surges that flooded coastal towns.

"The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami," said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the United Nations Disaster Assessment Coordination team.

"This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumble weeds, and the streets are strewn with debris ," he said, adding that relief efforts will be challenging because roads between the airport and the central city were "completely blocked." The U.N. team arrived in Tacloban on Saturday.

Continue reading.

Obama Now Faces Disasters of His Own Making

At some point you just can't keep blaming everyone else.

From Dan Balz, at the Washington Post, "For Obama, and Democrats, it’s crunch time":

President Obama likes to say he will never again be running for office, but every Democrat knows he will be on the ballot figuratively in 2014, and 2016, as well. Right now they are rightly nervous about that prospect.

A month ago, political Washington was transfixed by the errors committed by congressional Republicans. Those missteps led to a partial shutdown of the government, which in turn has brought approval of the GOP to record lows in many public opinion surveys.

Nothing about that has changed. But today, it’s Obama in the spotlight. A president famous for his unflappability, he is now struggling to square assurances that he is on top of the problems confronting his administration with assertions that he was unaware of the problems as they were developing.

The president’s apology for misleading people about whether they could keep their health insurance under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, which came during an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, was a remarkable step, underscoring just how concerned he and his advisers are about the damage caused by the chaotic rollout of the new law.

Obama long has been among the most self-confident of politicians and has not often been willing to acknowledge error in such a straightforward way. Where he has acknowledged shortcomings or disappointments, he has rarely included the kind of contrition he expressed to the people who took him at his word and have since seen their health-care policies canceled.

His mea culpa was all the more notable because it came only a few days after he had attempted to put a retrospective asterisk on those original assurances, enunciated as he sought to sell his controversial health-care plan to a skeptical public....

Obama is dismissive of the crisis-an-hour mentality that often grips the political chattering class. He has endured low moments throughout his political career and has found a way to ride them out. He is famously patient. But he is now in a hole of his own making...

Continue reading.

Balz argues that the president's biggest test is credibility, and it's hardly guaranteed that he'll be able to keep it, what, with all the gargantuan lies that just now biting him in the ass.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon, "When Obama says 'sorry' for Obamacare it's not the kind of sorry you think it is..."

Email to Bret Baier Puts #ObamaCare Disaster Into Perspective

At Jammie Wearing Fools.

And Zoey Connor.

L.A. Times Front-Page: 'No Quick Fix for Health Law' — #MyHealthPlanDied

I've got it screen capped, but the Times changed the headline at the website.

It reads, "White House seeks quick fix to health policy cancellations."

Hey, the subtle politics of media framing. And I'm not sure why, though. I mean, if the bad news is making it to the front-page of the paper, it's not much help to downplay the poor prognosis online.

At least the editors aren't burying the bad ObamaCare news altogether, like the disgusting Obama-shills at the New York Times. See NewsBusters, "NYT Puts Michael Shear's Pathetic Coverage of Obama's 'You Can Keep Your Plan' Excuse-Making on Page A14."

Megan McArdle on #ObamaCare

I read this astonishing piece by McArdle on Thursday, "Obamacare Shouldn't Have Been Managed Like a Campaign."

RTWT. (And "read the whole thing" certainly isn't an urgent enough exhortation to read that piece, but you definitely should read it all.)

I don't read McArdle very much; she's never been on my blogroll. But I was blown away at how good a writer she is. The article's a real piece of explanatory reporting. So good, in fact, that it earned the "flaming skull" at AoSHQ.

More from Robert Stacy McCain, "The Shocking (But Actually Predictable) Stupidity of ObamaCare Bureaucrats":

Ace of Spades gave the “Flaming Skull” alert to a quote from a Washington Post article about the ObamaCare botch that had been included in a summary by Megan McArdle at Bloomberg.

On Twitter last night, Ace seemed genuinely astonished by this. But really, who had any illusions that a bunch of liberal bureaucrats were competent to be trusted with the implementation of such a thing?

And more from McArdle, "Obamacare Is Running Out of Bullets," and "The Rise of the Obamacare Scams."