Say Anything

Why does no one in the media challenge these kinds of things?

"..it's post 9/11; Iran was more or less an American ally. By being included in the axis of evil it turned the Iranian government in a completely different direction; it was a turning point in American politics and foreign policy"

Maybe because they were uttered by someone in the media.  Allahpundit has already fisked this nonsense but it's helpful to add the fact that Iran was almost certainly responsible for the bombing of the US barracks at the Khobar Towers in 1996 and was later identified in the 9/11 Commission as being helpful to the AQ terrorists in the September 11th attack and later found partially responsible by a federal judge.

So to say that Bush's identification of them as an enemy in any way affected their true intentions towards the United States is ludicrous, especially coming from a supposedly respected NBC foreign policy analyst. More likely what happened is they saw that Bush was no Clinton and rushed in a loud-mouth radical blowhard to their 'presidency' after Bush refused to deal with them as a way to scare us off.  Now that another liberal is in the White House they've brought back a 'moderate' to make deals, and we're making deals.

Not to be outdone, the former Speaker of the House was interviewed today and said the following:

...we did not treat President Bush this way...this obstruction to President Obama is something quite stunning, and something quite different.

Well, except for Articles of Impeachment being brought against him.  Or the fact he issued 11 of his 12 total vetoes during the time period when Democrats ruled Congress under Bush, 2007-2008.

This is reminiscent of the faded memory of Keith Olbermann....


But Pelosi is the same dingbat who lied about knowing of the CIA 'torture' program back in the day, then when busted about it later called the CIA a bunch of liars.  Of course who could forget the Democratic House booing or dissing Bush during the SOTU in 2004 and 2005, or having the Senate Majority leader call Bush a 'loser' and saying the Iraq war was 'lost' on the floor of the Senate in 2007 with US troops still on the battlefield.

All of this should be shocking and outrageous but it's not surprising at all. The ends justify the means for our modern Democrats, and the nodding, baby-bird media acolytes are not likely to challenge them on much of anything, so they can just say anything.  As for Fox, well, they can be Alinsky'd.

FAIR AND BALANCED  1/28/14

It appears the Rand Paulster might have lapsed into a mild 'say anything' moment when discussing the War on Womyn.   He needs to address this, because of course, the press already has.   As to his comment on Bill Clinton's office antics back in the day, awesome.  Seems Ms McCaskill lapsed into a say anything moment herself in a fit of outrageous reply.

Now we await the ultimate in say anything, arriving on our screens in a little over an hour..

SAID ANYTHING  2/1/14

The State of the Union has already been dissected adequately by others so will not waste more time on it other than to say "year of action" is another slogan that has a slight reek of totalitarianism when coming from the current occupant of 1600.

In that vein, here's what he was saying back in 2008..



Amazing stuff, eh. 

Say What?

Did the new Director of the Department of Homeland Security really just say that illegal aliens, just by being in America, have earned the right to become citizens? Sounds like it...

“It is also, frankly, in my judgment, a matter of who we are as Americans,” he said, “to offer the opportunity to those who want to be citizens, who’ve earned the right to be citizens, who are present in this country--many of whom came here as children--to have the opportunity that we all have to try to become American citizens.”

Any fair reading would suggest he was talking about those 'in the shadows', ie, illegal aliens--those his department has a responsibility to apprehend.  Said another way, people who have repeatedly ignored our laws have earned a perk. He's basically calling people who go through the legal naturalization process chumps.  Maybe Bob Schieffer or someone in the real media can get to the bottom of this. 

Oh well, in a non-Orwell world Mr. Johnson would have already been asked for his resignation. In our newspeak reality laws are merely suggestions, upheld only if the Supreme Rulers deem them worthy.

Actually, one has to wonder what's going on at the White House. Here's a tweet they sent out today. Notice the typo..

Hmm.  Queso is muy bueno, especially with Tostitos.  Maybe the First Lady will be endorsing it soon.  

Indicting the Critics

News is breaking that Dinesh D'Souza, the "controversial" (the term will be used by every MSM outlet reporting on this) conservative writer who penned "The Roots of Obama's Rage" and the huge-grossing documentary "2016: Obama's America" that aired during the 2012 campaign season has been indicted by SDNY US Attorney Preet Bharara on a campaign finance charge.

They didn't name the candidate, but speculation points to his long-time friend Wendy Long, who was blown out by Democrat Senator Kristen Gillibrand in 2012.

As to the why/how, the WaPo had this comment, sourced to the SDNY, saying:

The indictment was the result of a routine review by the FBI of campaign filings with the FEC by various candidates after the 2012 election, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

But the NY Times explained it this way:

It is not clear from the court documents what led investigators to Mr. D’Souza in a fund-raising case involving relatively small donations, in a race that ended in a blowout win for Ms. Gillibrand. Ms. Long raised about $785,000 in the race.

So where lies the truth? How did they come upon this? Were they searching through the backlog of Hillary's Chinese bundlers looking for something and stumbled across it? 

D'Souza might be as guilty as sin--we'll see--but does the Obama administration not understand how utterly partisan and utterly Stasi this looks, considering his previous work and the upcoming debate scheduled with Bill Ayers along with the pending release of his new movie "America"?   Not to mention that India is still ticked off about the strip-search of their diplomat.     

Of course Carney will probably tell us tomorrow that Obama found out about it by reading a blog.

Aviation Update

Out to Hawaii, where a few weeks ago the medical examiner finally released a cause of death of State Health Director Loretta Fuddy in the crash of a Cessna 208 off the coast of Oahu. The initial autopsy was performed sometime between December 11-15th after the accident, which occurred  on December 11.  The NTSB preliminary report is here.

Oddly, a similar event happened in October of 2013 off Maui with another Cessna 208; read about that one here.  It also had 10 people onboard and landed safely--on a highway just onshore.  The NTSB has recovered the Fuddy aircraft and the engine was said to be in 'remarkably' good condition, so one assumes they should be able to determine why it failed.  

Of course the medical examiner finding--a cardiac arrhythmia (leading to heart failure)--will not be accepted by the conspiracy-minded among us.   And why should it, considering the weird coincidences?!

One might think a mystery or intrigue writer would also be enthralled by the sheer coincidence of the late Ms. Fuddy--the Hawaiian Health Department Director appointed by Governor Abercrombie shortly before the heralded release of Obama's long form birth cert--later meeting her fate as the only fatality in a highly-survivable crash just weeks before the Obamas were to arrive in Hawaii for vacation.   

For those who haven't seen it, here's onboard video of the crash..



Notice the commentators go through the entire report and never mention the "State Health Director" and her death until the very end, nor do they tell viewers about her famous tie to Obama.  They did comment on how calm everyone was, which is rather stark when watching the video, especially in the seconds before the plane hits the water.  Even after everyone gets into the water there seemed to be very little screaming or exasperation as the pilot can be heard saying "is everyone OK?" without any retorts to the contrary.

The commentators also didn't report on the strange cultish tie Ms. Fuddy had with the President's mother Stanley Ann or the fact this particular cult is associated with four places--Hawaii, Indonesia, Chicago and Seattle, all part of the fabric of Obama's narrative.  Not that they would have, just sayin that it's another strange thing in a universe of strange things.


But if there's a conspiracy in play, how was it supposed to play out?

Let's say some operative wanted to get rid of Ms. Fuddy due to her clandestine knowledge of a birth fraud and the possibility of her spilling some beans.  Would they do it by taking out a small airplane?  Maybe.  Maybe they would tamper with the engine at a remote airfield knowing it would be taking off over the ocean and hoping it would crash with no survivors.  So far there's no evidence of that, but the engine analysis is not yet done.

But if such a thing did occur, how did Ms. Fuddy end up getting murdered when the plane crash plot failed? Were the operatives just incredibly lucky or did they send trained dolphins to poke her with a poison needle or kill her with some kind of death ray?   The only option that makes any sense is pure luck.  Her murder in the water could only have been accomplished by one of the passengers or the pilot, of which there is no evidence.  One assumes the survivors have all been interviewed. 

Besides, it's quite believable a 65 year old woman paddling around in the ocean for over an hour might become panicked and exhausted to the point of straining her heart in such a scenario.  This seems more like a bizarre coincidence.

Actually, the more interesting piece of information is the cult shared between Obama's mama and Ms Fuddy.  By all accounts members practiced a form of yoga-like relaxation and prayer to get closer to their god.  We'll never know if Ms. Fuddy employed it during her last moments or whether it failed for her.  We'll also likely never know if Ms. Fuddy knew Ms Dunham back in the day and if so, whether that would mean anything.  The Subud cult supposedly came to the Islands in the early 60s.  But we do know it's yet another strange factoid in the still untold story.

On the Remnick Obama Hagiagraphy

New Yorker editor and Obama biographer David Remnick is back at work again, giving readers an inside view of the President in an extensive piece in his own magazine.  One excerpt about Obama not wanting his mythical son to play NFL football made a splash Sunday, but there are other interesting things in the 19 pages not included in Politico's summary, so I thought I would discuss some of them.  Those without the stomach or patience can peel off now without penalty.

Let's start near the beginning, with Remnick talking about Obama's work ethic and ability to 'crank things out', like book chapters, while discussing his expected lucrative presidential memoirs.  Quoting a friend:

“I don’t see him locked up in a room writing all the time. His capacity to crank stuff out is amazing. When he was writing his second book, he would say, ‘I’m gonna get up at seven and write this chapter—and at nine we’ll play golf.’ I would think no, it’s going to be a lot later, but he would knock on my door at nine and say, ‘Let’s go.’

This is odd considering that Remnick wrote a book about Obama that included details of how blocked Obama was when trying to finish "Dreams".  Writer Jack Cashill questioned some details and Remnick took issue--and not only with Cashill's thesis.  So we await Jack's response to this article.

Onward to the left coast.  Remnick writes largely from a fundraising trip taken with the President shortly after Thanksgiving 2013. Regarding the first stop, Seattle:

Obama stepped up to a platform and went to work. First ingratiation, then gratitude, then answers. He expressed awe at the sight of Mt. Rainier. Being in Seattle, he said, made him “feel the spirit of my mom,” the late Ann Dunham, who went to high school nearby, on Mercer Island.

Why wouldn't he mention that Obama himself once resided in Seattle when that same mother evidently dragged the small tot to Seattle so she could attend the University of Washington months after he was born, according to the evidence?  Cashill already has two items to pick apart!  

On to Frisco. He mentions Obama was interrupted by a heckler in the hand-picked background prop crowd, who was mad about illegals being deported.  Remnick passes on what appears to be another "heckler" at a stop later, although his definition of a heckler is a bit odd..

A man in the balcony repeatedly shouted out, “Executive order!,” demanding that the President bypass Congress with more unilateral actions. Obama listened with odd indulgence. Finally, he said, “I’m going to actually pause on this issue, because a lot of people have been saying this lately on every problem, which is just, ‘Sign an executive order and we can pretty much do anything and basically nullify Congress.’

” Many in the crowd applauded their approval. Yes! Nullify it! Although Obama has infuriated the right with relatively modest executive orders on gun control and some stronger ones on climate change, he has issued the fewest of any modern President, except George H. W. Bush.

So the heckler, and those cheering him on, were Democrats loudly demanding that Obama basically appoint himself king.  No shock there, just pause and consider what America is becoming.

As to Remnick's contention that O is trailing behind other modern presidents in issuing EOs, it's true. But he's got three years left. Who knows how many he might issue from here forward especially if the Congress turns more red later this year? It's similar to declaring a winner of the Super Bowl five minutes into the third quarter.

Anyway, forging ahead, Remnick paints a picture of a mellow choomer when it comes to back room political hardballing...

It described how Mark Begich, a Democratic senator from Alaska, had asked for, and received, a crucial favor from the White House, but then, four weeks later, when Begich voted against the bill on background checks, he paid no price. No one shut down any highway lanes in Anchorage; no Presidential fury was felt in Juneau or the Brooks Range.

The historian Robert Dallek, another guest at the President’s table, told the Times that Obama was “inclined to believe that sweet reason is what you need to use with people in high office.”

Which deserves a hearty guffaw.  This guy comes from the Chicago machine.  The only reason we don't know more about the hardball Christie-like antics is because Obama delegates that to underlings and reporters like Remnick don't want to upset themselves by investigating.

Later, here's a scene with an LBJ biographer meeting Obama:

..I said to Obama, ‘You know, my book wasn’t an unspoken attack on you, it’s a book about Lyndon Johnson,’ ” Caro recalled. L.B.J. was, after all, also the President who made the catastrophic decision to deepen America’s involvement in the quagmire of Vietnam. “Obama seems interested in winding down our foreign wars,” Caro said approvingly.

"Winding down our foreign wars", eh? Jiminy Christmas, does this fruitcake mean the ones that Arab and Islamic radicals started on and before 9/11; the ones they have no business 'winding down' themselves, even if we retreat?  Of course, that was attributed to the biographer, not Obama, but he's the one saying he's 'ending the wars' so there's some synchronicity there.  Put another way (in lefty-speak), those wars were Bush's fault, ie, OUR fault, ugly Colonial Americans, and ending them makes the Third World peoples love us again. Or something equally idiotic.  

As to the nature of 'getting things done' regards social justice and such:

And so the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

It's a nautical reference! Who wants to bet Obama threw it in there just to tease Cashill?!

Regards his 'evolving' on gay marriage, Remnick displays a moment of candor, offering:

to say that your views are “evolving,” though, is to say there is a position that you consider to be more advanced than the one you officially hold. And he held the “evolved” position in 1996, when, as a candidate for the Illinois state senate, he filled out a questionnaire from Outlines, a local gay and lesbian newspaper, saying, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages.”

Which was a fair dig, although it's obvious he didn't push the point with the President since there was no quoted reply, only Remnick's observation.  But he could have left it out.   If only he did it on every issue. 

On to the past..

He remembers going with his mother to live in Indonesia, in 1967—shortly after a military coup, engineered with American help, led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. This event, and the fact that so few Americans know much about it, made a lasting impression on Obama.

So the fact LBJ removed a Soviet and Mao-backed communist Sukarno made a lasting impression on the 6 year old Obama?  Amazing.  And once again Obama's step-father Lolo Soetoro is airbrushed out of any of his history. Weird, that.  

Drifting forward into grown-up Obama's foreign policy, here's a quote from aide Ben Rhodes..

For the President, Iraq was the defining issue, and now Syria is viewed through that lens, as was Libya—to be an idealist, you have to be a military interventionist. We spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and had troops there for a decade, and you can’t say it wielded positive influence. Just the opposite. We can’t seem to get out of these boxes.”

This is a confusing quote, especially considering Obama went to war in Libya (without Congressional approval) and was hours away from bombing Syria. But evidently that's OK as long as troops don't go in.  This mindset may explain the reluctance to put more US security personnel on the ground in Benghazi, a kind of overall aversion to a US projection of power that Ron Paul should find appealing, along with his son.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, who worked at the State Department as Hillary Clinton’s director of policy planning, says, “Obama has a real understanding of the limits of our power. It’s not that the United States is in decline; it’s that sometimes the world has problems without the tools to fix them.”

Members of Obama’s foreign-policy circle say that when he is criticized for his reaction to situations like Iran’s Green Revolution, in 2009, or the last days of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, in 2011, he complains that people imagine him to have a “joystick” that allows him to manipulate precise outcomes.

Which seems bizarre considering how he's surrounded himself with several "Responsibility to Protect" advocates.  He himself has used RtP to justify Libya and his proposed bombing raid in Syria.  And speaking of manipulating precise outcomes, surely Obama believes in Kyoto-type global warming agreements, the ultimate in manipulation.  By the way, it's OK to favor diplomacy over gunboats so long as it works, but the gunboats need to be lurking just offshore or nobody will fear them when the words stop working.   

On Iran, he seems quixotically hopeful:

Ultimately, he envisages a new geopolitical equilibrium, one less turbulent than the current landscape of civil war, terror, and sectarian battle. “It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren’t intent on killing each other,” he told me. “

And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion—not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon—you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.

Good luck with that, sir. By the way, this Middle East peace, including Persia, would absolutely not be possible with Saddam Hussein still in the middle of the calculus.  And he would still be there had Bush not removed him.  Just sayin, sir.

As to Israel, he seems to have the same kind of dreamy disposition, envisioning the Sunnis working with Jerusalem in a new era of cuddly hugging, but Remnick fades back to the LA fundraiser:

During Obama’s performance under Saban’s tent, there was no talk of a Sunni-Israeli alignment, or of any failures of vision on Netanyahu’s part. Obama did allow himself to be testy about the criticism he has received over his handling of the carnage in Syria. “You’ll recall that that was the previous end of my Presidency, until it turned out that we are actually getting all the chemical weapons. And no one reports on that anymore.”

Since the Jewish fundraiser was the only one where Remnick used the word "testy" maybe that should say something.  Too bad he couldn't have swung by the LA Times and grabbed that Rashid Khalidi video.  Surely they would have given it to editor of the New Yorker.

As to Syria, are we getting all the chemical weapons? Do we know? How about any biologicals? Are Assad's days still numbered? And what about AQ al Nusra and ISIS gaining property there? Nobody reports much on that anymore, either.

Speaking of AQ, to me this was the most controversial and ludicrous--and telling--comment from the entire piece.  Here's how the president responded to Remnick's observation about the black flag of AQ flying over more places now than before, including Syria and Iraq:

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

Uncharacteristically flip?  Sounds fairly characteristic to me.  This president was just as flip about the matter before he was elected.  The fact that he would compare AQ affiliates to basketball when these second stringers are occasionally in touch with emir Zawahiri is mind-numbingly bizarre, especially considering he recently closed over 20 embassies based on intercepted communications from Zawahiri to some of those B-teamers.     

The only time I get frustrated is when folks act like it’s not complicated and there aren’t some real tough decisions, and are sanctimonious, as if somehow these aren’t complicated questions.

Yeah, this being president stuff is hard, yo!   Oh for the good ole days when Bush was the problem with his secrecy, warmongering, and image-trashing.  Guess a PDB can change things.   Unless the PDB is talking about AQ B-teamers. 

On the flight back to Washington Remnick was again called to the chamber to ask a few more questions. He turned to the unprecedented prosecution of leakers during the O era, to which the President answered:

After a long pause, Obama began to speak of how his first awareness of politics came when, as an eleven-year-old, he went on a cross-country bus trip with his mother and grandmother and, at the end of each day, watched the Watergate hearings on television.

So that's why he's prosecuted more leakers than all other presidents combined--Woodward and Bernstein?  Well, that makes no sense, but the Watergate reference is partly why modern journalists LOVE Obama--he's just like them.  They too tingled watching the noble Woodward and Bernstein taking down Dr Evil and saving the world.  Most of them still see the same enemy and the same battle.  Obama knows this is media catnip.

Finally, a summary of Obama's untold greatness:

Obama has every right to claim a long list of victories since he took office: ending two wars; an economic rescue, no matter how imperfect; strong Supreme Court nominations; a lack of major scandal; essential support for an epochal advance in the civil rights of gays and lesbians; more progressive executive orders on climate change, gun control, and the end of torture; and, yes, health-care reform.

"A lack of major scandal" should get some righty juices flowing, especially considering Remnick's tome covers 19 pages and there's not one question about Benghazi, the IRS targeting, or Fast and Furious.  Or more obviously, the outright lie on health care or extra-presidential actions like changing laws or appointing people when the Senate was technically still in session.

But to the uppity east coast publications such things are phony scandals, concocted by two-bit fever swampers like Jack Cashill or Fox News.  Real scandals like the Valerie Plame thing or Karl Rove waking up in the morning were covered extensively, and rightfully so!

Remnick ends the piece with a going away quote from the President...

“I just wanted to add one thing to that business about the great-man theory of history. The President of the United States cannot remake our society, and that’s probably a good thing.” He paused yet again, always self-editing. “Not ‘probably,’ ” he said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

Which really gets to the core of the interview. In totality Remnick paints a picture of a thoughtful, methodical even-tempered but flawed man who is still trying to 'bridge' the disparate sides just like the narrative painted during the 2008 campaign.   He's the smarter than average bear floating above the fray, trying to get things done in a room full of partisan clowns, frustrated that people just can't see the greatness.  In the end, all the waffling on foreign policy belies a true legacy goal--social justice at home.  But don't worry too much conservatives, he's not going to go all MLK in remaking America to get us there. Or something.

MORE  1/23/14

Jack Cashill weighs in, and as usual, he's thinking outside the box:

Only the most willfully blind of Obama’s literary acolytes—Remnick chief among them--could believe that Obama wrote a well-researched 431-page book in between golfing engagements, weekend trips to Chicago, a few international jaunts, 39 town hall meetings, and a Herculean Senate schedule.

The Audacity of him!

Wouldn't it be nice to ask someone of an official capacity some of these questions, just once.   Oh well, surely all will be explained one day in the 20 million dollar memoir.  And just think about all the poor people that money will help!

Questions...

From Trey Gowdy.   For the mainstream media...



So, what are the odds he'll get any of the questions answered, especially since the questions he asked Admiral Mullen (of the vaunted Accountability Review Board) have not yet been answered.

MORE  1/19/14

There's one Benghazi explanation that has held firm from beginning to end...

 >

And, whether the assailants were real AQ from the Core of AQ, or fake AQ wannabees who only shared Core AQ's overall philosophy, it's worthy to remember what the Chieftain of Core AQ was saying only one day before 9/11...

Zawahiri's posting said the recording was made during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ran from mid-July to mid-August, but that it was released to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks of 2001. "This liar is trying to fool Americans into believing that he will defeat al Qaeda by killing this person or than person," he said, referring to U.S. President Barack Obama. "But he escapes from the fact that he was defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The United States withdrew most forces from Iraq last year after it led an invasion in 2003 to depose ruler Saddam Hussein, and it is planning a withdrawal from Afghanistan, invaded in 2001 to bring down the Islamist Taliban government. Zawahiri urged Muslims and particularly Libyans to take revenge for the killing of Libi. "His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders," he said.

Zawahiri is as core as they get, and someone took him up on the offer. That's a distinction without a difference, or should be.

Nor should anyone forget why the Cairo protest (used as the trigger of the Benghazi attack) was was organized in the first place--something the administration NEVER MENTIONED on all their TV appearances.

So, if the cheesy Mohammed video were to be subtracted from that 'calculus' it would leave a protest on 9/11 demanding the release of one of the original emirs of terrorism by the Muslim Brotherhood, an emir who blessed the first WTC attack and who was credited as inspirational by bin Laden himself.

Of course, such an admission goes back into the salad days of the Clinton 90s, when everything was wonderful and terrorism wasn't a looming threat, even though it was.  So it's understandable why the Secretary of State wouldn't want anyone to mention such unmentionables.

Side Tracks

I think I like this version best of all.  If one of the the McVies played banjo it probably would have been even better.

Hey, He Lied...

...but Charles, he's getting away with it...

Translation: They were never really serious about Afghanistan. (Nor apparently about Iraq either. Gates recounts with some shock that Hillary Clinton admitted she opposed the Iraq surge for political reasons, and Obama conceded that much of the opposition had indeed been political.)

The Democratic mantra — Iraq War, bad; Afghan War, good — was simply a partisan device to ride anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War feeling without appearing squishy. Look, they could say: We’re just being tough and discriminating. Iraq is a dumb war, said Obama repeatedly. It’s a war of choice. Afghanistan is a war of necessity, the central front in the war on terror.

Having run on that, Obama had a need to at least make a show of trying to win the good war, the smart war. “If I had ever come to believe the military part of the strategy would not lead to success as I defined it,” writes Gates. “I could not have continued signing the deployment orders.” The commander in chief, Gates’s book makes clear, had no such scruples.

Yep, duh. And Secretary Gates comes off looking like he just fell off the turnip truck at 70 expressing shock that Obama would not feel any passion about Afghan.  Most of us in the blogosphere knew the liberals were playing politics with national security back in 2004 and would do or say anything when Dr. Dean started the "Bush lied" meme. Obama was just the culmination of the grand plan to grab back power.


And yes, Mr. Austin Bay, you write a very good expose about Benghazi, speculating in all the right areas...

From the get-go, many of us didn't buy this crock. For starters, it leveraged several shop-worn left-wing "blame America" tropes, including that Americans are anti-Muslim bigots. The hooey was also at odds with on-the-ground reports, which emerged immediately after the horror. Pro-U.S. Libyans had warned that a well-armed militant Islamist militia intended to launch attacks in Benghazi. Granular reports of an extended firefight between the militiamen and a U.S. security element proved to be very accurate.

History has substantiated the heroism of former U.S. Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty as fact. They resisted for over six hours before being killed by enemy mortar fire. Ah, yes, peaceful demonstrators impulsively employing heavy infantry weapons. According to the now-available congressional transcripts, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey (after speaking with AFRICOM commander General Carter Ham) informed President Barack Obama that the consulate had suffered a terror attack.

Panetta and Dempsey told the president within an hour after the first assault began. Yet Obama Administration officials continued to peddle the "video did it" canard for almost two weeks after the assault. Why peddle a blatant falsehood? Because "the video did it" narrative advanced a propaganda campaign supporting central Obama re-election political themes. Obama claimed his presidency would dramatically change Arab Muslim perceptions of America. Though he never equated killing Osama bin Laden with defeating al-Qaida, he implied al-Qaida was fading fast. The Benghazi disaster countered these touts. Obama had to leave the American public with the definite impression that the Benghazi assault was spontaneous. Why, that nasty video incited inexplicable anger!

All of which should be obvious to just about anyone with a political brain, including most MSM reporters. Which means they don't want to consider it because of the damage it could do.  Some are even reporting on how Fox is covering it wrong instead of actually digging for any stories.  Meanwhile the same reporters speculate wildly about Christie's Bridgegate. They couldn't telegraph their bias any better with a skywriter.  Oh, and yes, Fox News is biased to the right, but they owe their very existence to the mainstream bias.

Hey, how about Snoop-gate? NSA-gate? No, there will be no 'gates' for Obama except Professor Henry Gates, which was the first look into our social justice president's true mind after the election (Joe the Plumber was our first true glimpse beforehand and look what happened to him).  The constitutional scholar president who campaigned on Bush's trashing of the Constitution, in part due to NSA surveillance, actually made it worse in 2011 before anyone was looking:

What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Tomorrow he will do what he always does--give a speech. That will satisfy most of the media with the exception of Greenwald and maybe Fox News.  A real media might connect some dots between Robert Gates' revelations, Dr. Krauthammer's assessment of fighting the 'good war' along the 'central front in the War on Terror' in Afghanistan, and the New York Times' recent apologia explaining how becoming president steeled Obama's spine with each PDB, and maybe question what the hell is actually going on.

For instance, they could question why we need more NSA snooping to protect us from terrorists while the administration downplays the terror threat, saying we might leave Afghanistan if there's no deal with Karzai.  They could question why we have no intention of sending troops back to Iraq or Syria to fight affiliates of AQ, which we're being told are somehow different than  "core AQ", while at the same time sending troops to Africa to look for Joseph Kony.   But they already know the answers. 

Finally, Obamacare. Not only did he outright lie to the public about keeping their plans and doctors, now it appears he is lying about how many have signed up for Medicaid:

Essentially, then, it is ridiculous to suggest, as the @BarackObama tweet does, that the people who have selected a health plan in the exchanges are in anyway equivalent to the 3.9 to 4.2 million who were deemed eligible for Medicaid.

After all that, along with the IRS, AP and Rosen snooping issues, a competent media might be wondering if this president can be trusted on anything for the next three years. The polls would say maybe not.  Swap political affiliations and how would the coverage be going now?  But the media helped him get elected, twice, so there's no going back now.  Attacking him (as they would attack Christie) is in effect an attack on themselves.   So he's getting away with things.   But for most of them, if we could see their journolist communications, probably think things are going well right now.

Crystal Clear as Mud

So let's get this straight.  After an Israeli Defense Minister popped off on the Israel-Palestinian secret peace dealings..

“In reality, there have been no negotiations between us and the Palestinians for all these months – but rather between us and the Americans. The only thing that can ‘save us’ is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace.”

..the administration sprang into outrage mode...

“The remarks of the Defense Minister (Moshe Ya’alon), if accurate, are offensive and inappropriate especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a brief statement that constituted a rare rebuke to close ally Israel.

“To question Secretary Kerry’s motives and distort his proposals is not something we would expect from the defense minister of a close ally,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Yet here's the same Jay Carney responding to a question about the blathering from Iran's president over figuratively kicking the West's ass in their non-secret secret nuclear deal:

"Jim, it's not surprising to us nor should it be to you that the Iranians are describing the agreement in a certain way for their domestic audience".

Zero outrage.  No disappointment.  In other words, the Iranians are being cut slack for simply posturing while the White House and State Department rip the Israeli Defense Minister's comments without even fully knowing whether they were reported accurately or not.   Can anything be taken from this? 

Well, it actually dovetails nicely with the increasing numbers of Democrats outwardly threatening to join a Senate bill forcing more sanctions on Iran despite pleas from the administration to give peace a chance (along with the president's staunch threat to veto it).  Are they just posturing, too?  Is the president just posturing by threatening to veto the bill?  Why can't Israel posture, too?

Or do these Democrats actually have more in common with the Israeli Defense Minister, ie, a real concern for their people and their security when staring at what looks to be an elaborate political flim-flam probably designed to get Obama off the looming Red Line hook in Iran just as the flim-flam in Syria got him off the WMD Red Line hook there. 

But onward we plod into the unknown, giving peace a chance.  In light of that it might be nice to call up some oldies but goodies as to who exactly we are on the verge of making a deal with right now.  Don't forget, there are two Americans still held hostage in Iran and they are presumably still allowing AQ terrorists to operate there as they have since 9/11 (and possibly before).  Indeed, the sanctions bill the administration is so vehemently posturing against only states the obvious:

One of the requirements of a new bipartisan Iran sanctions bill in the Senate is that President Barack Obama certify “Iran has not directly, or through a proxy, supported, financed, planned, or otherwise carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or United States persons or property anywhere in the world” during nuclear negotiations with the West.

If Iran—one of the top global sponsors of terrorism—is caught committing an extremist act, the bill would require new sanctions to immediately take effect.

Terror against the US?  Do tell!   Of course the Kerry people scoff at such an outrageous precondition as a deal-buster, claiming that a single itty-bitty terrorist attack could set back negotiations.  All of which sounds vaguely akin to surrendering to the terrorists, but in our present reality it's usually referred to as Smart Power.

Gates-gate and Christie

Yes, the use of 'gate' on the end of anything controversial is trite and overused, but I couldn't resist.

Although nobody except Gates and a selected few have read the book yet, the releases make it sound like a hit job on his former boss.  Which seems a bit unseemly considering he's not gone yet, that is unless the former Secretary believes the information he's passing along is somehow critical to the moment.  The White House sure seems engaged. Then again, if it was so critical he could have released the book before the election.

Just standing back and taking a perspective, the contrast between Mr. Gates' bombshell assertions--that Obama and Hillary both played politics as Senators by opposing the Iraq surge in 2007 and that Obama sent a surge into Afghanistan but believed the mission would fail (ie, he had to do it because he'd used Afghanistan as a cudgel against McCain and Bush to get elected), those allegations are much worse than a New Jersey governor being accused of closing a few lanes of traffic as some kind of vindictive political punishment to a mayor.

Speaking of which, shall we question the timing?  The Christie story followed the Gates story by a day, how convenient, since one story hurts Hillary and the other greatly helps her.  Just sayin'.  

As to the book, I may buy it, but I may not.  The teaser makes it attractive to conservatives but it's just as likely it contains a glowing portrayal of Obama, a general criticism of Bush, and a tacit disapproval of the Tea Party.  Just guessing here.  Will take an NFL approach and wait for further reviews.  

As to Christie, well, he's now fired more staffers involved with scandals than has the President.   But he's up against the Clinton machine now.  There's only one machine that has successfully defeated them and their "sent" man is in the White House--a man who outmaneuvered Hillary based on her Iraq vote and who actually had two machines, one in Chicago and the other in the national media.  Christie has no known machine and no help from the national media, so things will get worse.  They will try to make this a boat anchor, but Christie is no Ken doll so it's a toss up.  That is, unless evidence comes out that he ordered it.

And that still wouldn't be as bad as running illegal guns to Mexico, intimidating Inspector Generals, using the IRS to target political enemies, disregarding the law through an Attorney General, spying on the media, spying on foreign leaders' personal phones, lying about health care, lying about Benghazi, appointing people when Congress isn't in session, or changing laws by fiat.  Or even lying about being shot at during a stop in the Balkans as a sympathy ploy to get elected.  But it will kill Christie's political career in a New York minute anyway.

1/10/14

Corrected obvious misspelling of Chris Christie's name in the headline.  

Meanwhile,  Jay Leno wins the comment of the day award...

“Pundits are saying this could hurt [Christie’s] 2016 presidential campaign. The ironic thing is now that Christie is denying everything he sounds even more presidential..

That should be an 'ouch, that's gotta hurt' moment, but sadly, it won't.

MORE  1/12/14

As criticism comes in on Gates writing a book before his old boss leaves office it's worth remembering how the media treated Paul O'Neill, Dubya's first Treasury Secretary, who claimed Bush was after Saddam Hussein on day one, wink, wink.   

Squirrel!

The president gave a speech today.

Not one on the troubles with Obamacare, say for example detailing how many young fit pajama hipsters have signed up so far or whether everyone who signed up actually has insurance.   Or why the 7 million number in March was not really a goal, but merely a suggestion. 

Not one on the mess in Syria and Iraq, explaining why al Qaeda in those areas is not our problem anymore.  Or why we're de facto supporting AQ in Syria and not Iraq.  

Not one on the Bi-Lateral Security Agreement for our forces in Afghanistan, which the White House said must be signed by January 1 or else all troops might be removed after 2014.   Karzai still hasn't signed it.

Not one on the NSA spying scandal and whether Edward Snowden deserves the same kind of respect given to the burglars that broke into an FBI office in 1970 and revealed the COINTELPRO documents, which eventually resulted in his buddy Bill Ayers getting away with domestic terrorism (when Obama was 8).

No, the speech today was about extending unemployment benefits, blaming Congress for going on vacation while the jobless suffer.  Which is rich, considering that he was on vacation, too (and is leaving his wife in Hawaii for an extra expense).  Not to mention the fact the cessation of the benefits was the result of a bi-partisan budget deal in Congress, of which he claims we need more.

Yet despite the bi-partisan compromise, today a fix-it bill is moving along in the Senate, which basically undermines the bi-partisan compromise.  It's like making a deal for a car then having the dealer come back after it's in your driveway and demand money for the stuff he threw in for free.

Any fool should know where this is leading--a show-down with the Tea Party in the House, whom the Democrats will label as hateful and insensitive children-haters if they don't pass it.  Which provides the perfect lead-in for Obama to open his true socialist agenda for the coming three years, better known as "income inequality", or Occupy Wall Street, 2014 edition.  

Too bad we don't have a real media to analyze any of this.  But ABC's web page is doing a great job keeping everyone updated on the latest celebrity happenings.

CRAVEN  1/8/14

What the administration is doing on this unemployment extension is nothing short of craven.  Their argument is that Bush did scores of times; in fact most of the 'emergency' extensions were after crises like 9/11 or during the 2008 financial collapse.  Katrina victims were specifically targeted.   So are they saying things are as bad as those times? 

The other side of Obama's mouth is saying he saved the economy and things are going good.   The only reasons they would pull such a stunt would be to 1) shield Obama from bad press when people lose their benefits after actually signing a bill without the extensions, 2) part of a strategy to make the GOP look bad as part of the kickoff of a broader initiative, or 3) they are clueless clowns.   Number 3 is not an option, these people are not clueless, they are clowns who know exactly what they're trying to accomplish.   Two sounds more plausible.

Another Asterisk

John stuck in Iraq Kerry came out today and laid down the law-- AQ in Iraq is Maliki's problem..

In his first remarks since Islamic militants with Al Qaeda ties overran the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised support for Iraq's government, but emphatically rejected any possibility that the U.S. would send troops back into the country, saying of the Baghdad government "this is their fight."

OK, well most Americans don't want to send troops back either, so this isn't likely to be a political problem for the administration unless things get worse. Still, are we engaged in fighting AQ wherever they are, or not?

Remember, this president and his current Secretary of State mercilessly blasted Bush and McCain for fighting the wrong war, wrong time, wrong place, ie, our fight was against bin Laden and his AQ affiliates, not Iraq. Now AQ is in both Iraq and Syria and they are off limits? The policy is beginning to look a bit feeble and confused.

Going back in time, here's what the CinC said when it was easy to speculate about actionable intelligence..


That was the long version. Here's the short debate version with McCain..


In both clips Obama says something similar: "if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top level lieutenants, in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take him out."  The emphasis was added to show that he wasn't necessarily talking about a belligerent government in league with AQ but also one that was incapable of helping for whatever reason. That might fit Iraq and Syria at some point, if not already.

Obama can argue that he limited his comments only to Pakistan then later followed through on UBL, presumably without Pakistan's assistance.  Obviously he's correct, but at the same time surely he wouldn't argue that such a doctrine was limited to only one man on one spot on Earth at one time, seeing as how he mentioned AQ secondaries and high-value targets as Ayman Zawahiri continues to remain on the lam.

Indeed, the doctrine seems to still be in place.  We just snatched 'core AQ' member Anas al-Liby off the streets of Tripoli and spirited him off to a secret interrogation facility on a ship, with unknown help from the Libyan government.  So there appears to be a healthy dose of hypocrisy regards Obama's war on AQ.  When it was convenient to say the US would storm into a country without said country's assistance that was the policy, but when it comes to more inconvenient places, well, they are on their own now.

Politically speaking this might work on a war-weary public unless something bad comes out of the region.  But maybe not even then. For instance, CNN reported shortly after the Benghazi attack that AQ in Iraq members took part, which would suggest grounds for a reprisal attack with or without Maliki's help.  But the administration has managed to eliminate that fact morsel from the public consciousness with the help of a media too afraid to report on Benghazi for fear it might harm Sir Edmund Hillary Clinton.

That said, pointing out the political hypocrisy and opportunism is fine for a snarky blogger, but it leaves us where, exactly?   Does anyone think we can re-enter Iraq at this point with troops, even if the CinC once said he would leave behind a force to deal with AQ?  These terrorists are now spread out in factions across two countries.

Maybe the best solution is actually what Kerry is advising--have these nations battle the threat themselves.  That would be a culmination of the Bush doctrine and one the United States should be fully supporting in the background.  Then if things eventually go to worms or a massive attacks is hatched from the region we may have no choice but to go back.  Perhaps the actual president will weigh in on this in the days ahead.   

Back to Iran for a Minute

In perusing the daily JOM comments came across this..

Think Stuxnet. Handed to him, probably begun development late in 43's first term, exposed--intentionally I believe--in order to kill the program... which again supports the persian mullahs.

The worm was indeed developed late in 43's second term with assistance from Israel, based on open source info. So it's a very interesting observation. 

For instance, the leak of the Stuxnet story to the New York Times occurred on or before June 1, 2012, when their story appeared.  Reports have circulated that State diplomat Jake Sullivan first visited with Tehran in Oman as early as July 2012, well before A'jad was bounced out of office in favor of the 'moderate' Rouhani.  This was only a month after the Stuxnet story appeared in print.

So the question is whether the Iranians had any influence on the leak or whether the leak prompted the Iranians to seek out a meeting.  General James Cartwright, a former member of Obama's Joint Chiefs and once described as "Obama's favorite general", has been pegged as a person of interest in the leak.

Perhaps Cartwright, who wasn't promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2011 allegedly because he was no longer a team player, according the sources for the WaPo, sought revenge against his old boss. But that's a weighty charge to consider for a former military professional and patriot. 

The general still has not been indicted, meaning he has not been found guilty by anyone, meaning there's more than a little 'making an ass our of u and me' here as to his role.  But right now he's the only name dropped as to culpability.  That he's represented by former Clinton and Obama legal operative Greg Craig might just be a coincidence; Craig supposedly left the White House without good feelings, too.  It's hard to know what power moves might be in play without being a fly on the wall.  

The leak investigation in general was assigned to Maryland US Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, a Bush 43 appointee whom Democrats repeatedly blocked from an appointment to the 4th Circuit, but who was one of only three USA's kept on by Obama.  Was the investigation just a dog and pony show to wrap a bow on the operation and quiet people like McCain, or based on Mr. Rosenstein's stellar reputation is such an idea too ludicrous to even consider? 

Whatever the case, like most other Obama scandals it's now largely out of sight, out of mind.  As to Iran, maybe it's time for the LA Times to show us the Khalidi tape, especially after another Obama-Khalidi photo emerged last year.  But we know they won't, not with Obama's foreign policy legacy on the line.  So the sky remains gray for the hoi polloi.  But there's always football.    

Weather or Not

Drudge is going crazy with the weather stories today, taking a cue from the mainstreamers, who are all talking about "Hercules".   By the way, who started naming winter storms and what's the criteria for getting a name anyway?

It's winter and it's cold outside today in Memphis.  No newsflash.  But the local news is highlighting an even colder "Arctic Blast" heading in over the weekend, which could be trouble.  Presuming this name thing works alphabetically as with hurricanes, what will they name this one?  How about "Imhotep".  Or would that be offensive to the Egyptians?  

Whatever the case it could be a doozy, not so much for snow but temperatures; Memphis is expected to remain in the teens on Monday according to the NWS..

We barely drop down into the teens during a normal winter, much less have a high in the teens.  The south isn't built for such temperatures; pipes and people tend to freeze.  So it's prudent for residents to take it seriously. 

Actually, it's been a cold year here overall-- 2013 was probably below average.   None of which signals an end to global warming, or climate change, or Tea Party induced planetary death, or whatever the official liberal name is now.   But it sure would be funny if Al Gore were coming to town next week for a global warming conference, assuming he wasn't on that expedition ship trapped in the summer Antarctic ice.

A Nation of Laws?

....news from California..

The California Supreme Court granted a law license on Thursday to a man living in the United States illegally who graduated from law school and passed the state bar exam. The decision means Sergio Garcia can begin practicing law despite his immigration status. ...

Garcia arrived in the U.S. illegally 20 years ago to pick almonds with his father and worked at a grocery store and in the fields while attending school.

Oddly, the US Government was a party to the case, arguing against allowing Mr. Garcia to be state certified. This sets up an interesting scenario for 2014.  Will the administration, while promoting visions of a comprehensive illegal immigration reform bill, take Jerry Moonbeam Brown back to court for flaunting US law and the rule of law in general by allowing this abomination to stand?  After all, they sued Arizona after that state passed the ID bill they felt was improper. 

Caught a little bit of the Limbaugh program while driving around today, wherein he mentioned this story in context with Obama flaunting US law as to Obamacare and immigration (which pegs the irony meter in this instance) along with Peyton Manning's passing record story.  The Manning pass was clearly a lateral but they are going to let it stand for obvious political reasons even though Manning might have come out in the second half and been injured on the first play without getting the record (Manning himself knows it was a lateral and should have spoken up).  The same league will allow the Steelers to miss the playoffs on a blown call. 

All of these things point towards a future where the rule of law that has held America together for over two centuries--and is partly why illegal immigrants flock to our shores--will become so watered down as to become virtually meaningless.  And here the networks seem shocked that polls show that Americans have less and less confidence in their government going into 2014.  They are helping produce it.