It is, I think, impossible to identify any historical figure who can equal Barack Obama’s unique and astonishing record of undeserved accomplishment. From the Nobel Peace Prize awarded on no actual basis whatsoever to the Presidency itself, achieved on the record essentially of a presidential campaign piled on top of a totally undistinguished record of non-accomplishment and underachievement as a state senator, Barack Obama has successfully gathered every laurel, won every blue ribbon, been crowned with every honor, without ever actually doing anything to merit any of them.

The latest distinction headed for Barack Obama’s personal trophy case seems particularly incongruous, but who can quarrel with the fates when they are determined on further comedy?

Duffelblog:

The White House Press Office announced today that President Obama will soon be inducted into the Special Forces Association and receive an honorary Green Beret.

Officials have said the honor will be bestowed in an upcoming September 11th ceremony at Fort Bragg.

The honorary beret comes in recognition of the President’s decisive role in covert operations throughout the world during his term — including the killing of Osama bin Laden last year in Pakistan, and his combat action in Afghanistan months ago.

Army Public Affairs has confirmed that Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland will personally present Obama with his beret and a specially engraved Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife.

The knife, traditionally used by elite soldiers world-wide since the beginning of the 20th century, will have the President’s name stamped on the blade, along with the names of deceased Special Forces Medal of Honor recipients Randall Shugart and Gary Gordon, immortalized in the novel and film Black Hawk Down.

The presentation will be in a small but highly anticipated ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

Read the whole thing.

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The best reaction came from commenter Tim at American Digest, quoting Bob Dylan’s Tombstone Blues:

John the Baptist, after torturing a thief,
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief,
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief,
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”

Breitbart:

[W]ord spread rapidly over the weekend among conservative new media outlets that an impromptu “National Empty Chair Day” is being planned for Monday.

It was Bill Jacobson who first proposed that everyone run a picture of an empty chair, and promised that he would run examples forwarded to him. The volume of the response seems to have crashed the Legal Insurrection site, so I can’t forward this to Bill, but here goes anyway.

The picture comes from Clarice Feldman.

(click on image for larger version)

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(click on image for larger version)

Hat tip to Theo.

Joe Biden debating Paul Ryan is going to be a battle of IQs reminiscent of George Custer taking on 6000 Cheyenne and Sioux warriors with just over 200 men.

Roger Kimball gloats over Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech and indulges in a just little schadenfreude with respect to the opposition.

I suspect that Joe Biden is feeling pretty awful this morning. For that matter, I’d wager Barack Obama has had better nights’ rest. Condi Rice’s speech was bad enough for the Democrats — it was serious, dignified, eloquent — but Paul Ryan hit it out of the park. They both must have watched Ryan’s speech. They both must have come away with an empty feeling in the pit of the stomach. And poor Joe has to debate Ryan in a little more than a month. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost. …

He read the speech, but he knows how to make it seem ex tempore, almost confidential. His manner is open, confident, but somehow also humble. There is nothing swaggering, nothing of the braggart or narcissist about him. He seems impressed not by the sound of his own voice but by the facts and observations he shares with his listeners. He also exuded the physical grace of youth. His iPod playlist, unlike Mitt Romney’s, started with AC/DC and went to Zepplin. The audience loved that.

Ryan’s obvious sincerity allows him to deliver devastating one-liners without seeming cruel:

President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record. But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy as we are living it.

Ouch. But then came this:

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.

That must have stung.

Hat tip to Clarice Feldman (FB).

Hat tip to Don Surber (FB).

The smartest man who ever lived is participating in spelling the name of the great state of “O-I-H-O”.

Even funnier was the Washington Post‘s hasty attempt to explain that the picture had been Photoshopped by nasty Republicans, which they were forced before very long to recant.

In this political ad, a variety of retired military and intelligence officers and special forces operatives go after Barack Obama and the Obama Administration for leaking sensitive national security information for political gain.

If anyone wonders why the Obama team is so unhappy about Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential pick, just watch Obama’s face as Paul Ryan dissects the Obamacare bill. Obama looks like he’s about to turn into a giant snake, the same way Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) did in “Conan the Barbarian” (1982).