Obama's post terror leadership: the audacity of Trump

Some may remember this comment going around before the 2008 election, taken from Obama's second biography "Audacity of Hope", emphasis added:

"(T)he stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

President thin-skin just made that crystal clear again today.  Even some of the top cheerleaders in the White House press room were a bit taken aback by Obama's passion and how it was directed more towards Trump than our radical Islamic enemies. 

But they of all people should have no room to complain---they are the ones who overlooked or downplayed snippets like the above back when it counted.  Obama telegraphed everything he's done up to this point before he was elected, it was incumbent on citizens to ferret those views out by themselves because the press was acting as his campaign staff. 

Now, his passion towards immigrants is not necessarily misdirected--we are a nation of immigrants--and nobody should want people a repeat of FDR's FEMA camps for Muslims.  But when he focuses his passion more on their rights or Republicans or the Second Amendment than the barbarity of the terrorists that use Islam to justify their actions., it's a tell.   It's why we have a Donald Trump. 

Aviation Update

Once again an aviation tragedy gets turned into a political football.   But this isn't all about Trump. 

Yes, the Donald showed poor judgment in jumping on the terrorist bandwagon as soon as the news reports came in on EgyptAir 804.  While that might have been everyone's gut reaction, a president cannot always operate off gut reactions.  Imagine Trump in the White House reacting this way then later the crash is blamed on a mechanical issue.   And that's no endorsement of Hillary, who also got on the bomb theory bandwagon albeit after unnamed US officials leaked what might amount to the same suspicions everyone else had.


Of course those US officials were echoing Egyptian officials in the early terror pronouncement.   And yes, the media has already started a whitewash campaign to pretend that Hillary really didn't endorse the terrorism angle on day one just like Donald, and will use it as a cudgel against him.   But he allowed it.

Meanwhile, those same initial reports indicated there was no distress call from the jet to Egyptian air traffic control after it was 'handed off' from Greek controllers. Some news stories suggested there was no contact at all--the plane just went down.  That's presumably what got many in the US media going down the terrorism road.     

Now today it was reported that there was actually an extensive conversation between Egyptian ATC and the doomed plane as it made an emergency descent due to a fire.  Wow, how did that get lost?  So that begs the question: were early reports from Cairo bungled or was it a deliberate deception?  Perhaps that's why someone on the inside leaked ACARS reports to Avherald that showed the onboard fire.  

Does all this mean the Donald goofed up and there was no terror attack?  Yes and maybe no.  Yes, he goofed up by jumping the gun, but yes it might still be an attack.  We know there was a fire, it started somewhere/somehow.  Terrorists these days are likely using small incendiary devices they can get past security--recall the Daallo Airlines A321 event where the idiot succeeded in blowing himself out of the jet and killing nobody else. The plane landed safely.  He smuggled the device in on his wheelchair.  So just because the aircraft didn't suffer a complete hull failure and immediately fall from the sky doesn't mean it wasn't attacked by someone. 

Also, just because the fire might have started in the electronics bay or lavatory doesn't necessarily mean there was no sabotage involved-- see the New York Times story today about what EgyptAir employees scrawled on the outside of that very same aircraft after current president Al-Sisi couped out Muslim Brotherhood terrorist sympathizer Mohammed Morsi two years ago.  That might amount to Jihadi sabotage, which most people would consider the same as Islamic terrorism. 

Still, all this new information certainly tips the scales of likely cause away from terrorism and more towards mechanical failure.   The question then becomes why the Egyptians allowed the erroneous information to percolate in the world media for days?   Was their concern legal liability or were they seriously trying to deflect while giving them time to comb their airports for Morsi/ISIS sympathizers?  Is the submarine they are sending in meant to locate the wreckage or maybe manage it?

Whatever the case, it behooves politicians and other officials to reserve judgments on these kinds of events for at least a few days.      

MORE  5/23/16

In another example of how most media outlets shouldn't be trusted to even report on a 3td class presidential race, much less important worldwide events, now they are saying there was no extended conversation.   And no, it doesn't mean that was deception or misdirection, it was likely some media twit misunderstanding the source. 

Also, on CNN's coverage this evening they were saying that whole 90 degree 360 degree turn thing might be fiction as well, since that information was presumably gleaned from primary radar only.  If the leaked ACARS messages indeed ended abruptly only minutes into the event, along with the secondary radar transponder track, then it seems we are back to Trump's original speculation.  At least right now.  The only definitive way to settle this will be the old-fashioned way, analyzing the recorders and wreckage.   But politicos don't have time to wait.   

Transparency Clinton Style

Say what you will about the bizarre spectacle that is the GOP primary, the primary alternative continues to display her own special clown act.  Here's an example of where she thinks the public deserves transparency...

Hillary Clinton says barring any national security risk, she would like to open up the government files on Area 51 to the public if she is elected president. “I would like us to go into those files and hopefully make as much of that public as possible,” she told Jimmy Kimmel Thursday night on his late night ABC talk show. “If there’s nothing there, let’s tell people there’s nothing there.”

And here's a situation where she doesn't think the public deserves transparency:

The previously undisclosed February 2009 emails between Clinton from her then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, raise new questions about the scope of emails from Clinton’s early days in office that were not handed over to the State Department for record keeping and may have been lost entirely. Clinton’s presidential campaign has previously claimed that the former top diplomat did not use her personal "clintonemail.com" account before March 2009, weeks after she was sworn in as secretary of State.

Pretty telling, eh?  No wonder the kids like Bernie. 

In the meantime, video is making the rounds of a national security stemwinder Mrs Clinton puffed out recently in the shadow of Brussels wherein she compares her steady leadership against Trump's when it comes to kicking some terrorist arse and gathering our friends to help.

And such a strategy might be an effective, especially if propped up by the media, except for one thing--most of what she's talking about doing are things Obama is currently NOT doing, and she was an integral part of his administration when the Arab Spring in Syria gave rise to ISIS.   

But Obama is trying to help.  He's been slow-rolling his fight against the JV squad since 2012 but lately it seems progress is being made with the loss of their number two and the counter-attack to recapture Mosul underway.  The Syrian Army is retaking parts of their country after a dose of Putey Poot.  ISIS may indeed be on the run now.  All of this may time out perfectly for November. 

But again, not so fast.  There are still ISIS cells in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere, plus thousands of radicalized wannabees sprinkled around the globe.  Obama will have to answer to his policy of "Assad must go" if Assad becomes more firmly entrenched.  That's his legacy problem, but nobody will really care.  But Libya?  That's on Hillary.  Which is low-hanging fruit for a player like Trump.

Carnival of Clowns

This is the kind of nonsense the Republicans are going to face going forward.  Front page of the NY Times today, a widget looping through the four main campaign issues determined by the Times, and framed by the Times..

So there you go, issues boiled down in a cartoonish fashion right before the debate, with no specific mention of fighting ISIS other than whether they want to admit Syrian refugees. Nothing at all about foreign policy other than global warming.  Maybe this was sent to the Times from the White House.

If you throw in the clown show that is Trump and how he is setting up a large part of the GOP electorate to be called bitterly clinging racist rubes by Clinton when he finally flames out; and if you consider that unlike General Petraeus, Hillary Clinton's far worse security violations will not be punished, it's beginning to look like this election is already over. They might as well just let George Stephanapoulis anoint the Clintons on Good Morning America and save us all the trouble of listening to campaign ads and robocalls.

Another GOP candidate in mix!

According to Fox News..

We'll see if this guy "Tump" can get any traction with so many others in the field..

Trumped and Done

So Trump is out. A lot of us predicted it (pounds chest). The question is why. Let's go back to some possibilities laid out in a previous post (pounds chest again):

So maybe Trump is trying to deflate this balloon before it becomes the Hindenberg. Only a birther with his status could crack the big media bubble and be given the time to challenge the narrative without being yanked off the set. They all respect his business acumen too much to go nuclear--yet. So maybe the plan is that by making this an issue now (where was he a few years ago, for instance) it could force Obama to play his own 'trump card' too early--in response to his persistence and threats--thereby removing it from play when the real war begins.

Otherwise, we're left to believe the absurd--that he's really running and is simply rich and powerful enough to get away with challenging the first black president's bona fides, which propels him to the top of the pack. In this day and age that could be called courage--unless of course he's acting for the Democrats under deep cover....

So far all we know is that he's not running and the birther card can no longer be played on legitimate GOP candidates. His cred it trashed, but being a true carnival barker his care-less audience won't hold it against him so long as he goes back to being the Donald, TV CEO.

Narrative Games

The Trump mystery continues. Here's MSNBC parroting an AP story that suggests the Donald has forced all the presumptive GOP candidates to 'take a stand' on Obama's fuzzy narrative:

In recent days several prominent Republicans have distanced themselves, with varying degrees of emphasis, from the false claim that Obama was born in a foreign country. But with a new poll showing that two-thirds of adult Republicans either embrace the claim or are open to it, nearly all these GOP leaders are not calling for a broader effort to stamp out the allegations.

And right on cue, here's the NY Times corralling a bunch of experts to dissect just how bat crazy those 45 percent are who can't take a faith-based approach to the president:

What drives this kind of false political belief and why is it so hard to dispel?

What drives them? Perhaps it's called a media that didn't do their jobs in vetting this man, and still won't. To illustrate this point, Joy Behar had Trump's trophy wife on and actually said the following about 'vetting' presidents:

"I don't know what skeletons he's got in his closet, but everyone gets vetted when they're going to be president--you know what that means 'vetted'? They've going to look into everything...

Everything, except just about everything for the first black president. We probably know more about Trump than we do about Obama. Which brings us to a clarification--the birther thing isn't really limited to the birth, it's really about the entire narrative. Let anyone question it and.. watch out. For instance, yours truly believes O was born in Honolulu but there might be some interesting factoids on the vital record regards his step-father Soetoro, which might be interesting reading. That along with his masterpiece of fiction likely co-written by a terrorist. But it's all the same to the smear merchants.

Our crafty president is not affected and continues using the issue, one that he created, to gain politically no matter how much it might divide America. It was only a matter of time before the mainstreamers realized they could jump onboard and help the cause, and they are doing so. If they know what Trump is really up to they aren't saying, but it doesn't matter now.

Lots of good speculation out there. A good point was also made on the O'Reilly show tonight regarding star power. Obama is a celebrity. He won by being a celebrity who bashed Bush, in league with the best Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central characters, hip and cool. That may be the model for 21st century America. On a side note, actually running a country is a bit harder, less sexy, boring, and perplexing, but one can always farm out sticky problems to beer summits or blue ribbon task forces (whose laborious ground rules practically guarantee the issue will be forgotten in a 24/7 news cycle). Or just blame the previous guy.

Trump is also a celebrity, so far insulating him from being called a racist for questioning the nativity narrative, but the rest of the field doesn't have that luxury and must answer correctly or be relegated to the dustbin of candidates and a SNL cartoon figure. Obviously this leaves them weak and trembly and defensive. Palin is an outlier--she's clearly also a celebrity (which is why the left pulled a collective groin muscle swarming on her with long knives right off the bat--they saw her persona potential) but she'll easily be called a racist dingbat for not answering correctly. She's less scared, but just as naked to the barbs. So as the AP indicates, Trump is having a negative affect.

That leaves a scenario where if nothing changes America may actually witness an incumbent winning a second term with stagnant employment above 9 percent, high gas prices, 3 wars, and a trail of broken promises only because people are made to believe his opponents are racists. Somebody may yet pop out of the woodwork, or Trump's investigators may actually have something interesting (that's not Jerome Corsi's book), but it better happen soon. Of course, we can't forget Dick Cheney--his book is still in the wings and may have a few surprises. He knows a lot.

MORE 4/23/11

Here's CNN with a "birther" story. It's a factual story about states wanting to pass eligibility bills, but in an overarching sense it's just another "these people are nuts--how dare they demand to know any more information than what we've told them about the leader of the free world" screeds.

Chances are they've published more stories about the crazy birthers than about Obama's past in general. Trump is helping that cause big-time, and the longer he delays entrance or revealing his 'interesting' information, the more damage they can do. Meanwhile none of them will ask biographer Christopher Andersen about why he claimed Ayers co-wrote Dreams or grill the administration on why they lied in the campaign about the relationship in general. But when you're as far in the tank for someone as they are, it must be hard to see the sunlight.

RACIST! 4/23/11

Take a look at the comment section of any story on the birth cert and you'll quickly notice that a preponderance of the attack replies call anyone who questions the birth narrative a racist. A frequent refrain is "if he was white and named John Smith, nobody would be asking these questions".

There might be some truth to that thinking. But it's not a perfect analogy.

Obama has a Muslim-African name. The better analogy would be this-- what if a white GOP candidate, whose father was from Germany, had the first name "Adolph"? Or the last name of "Himmler" or "Goering"? Somehow I think the same people calling the birthers a bunch of racists would be demanding long forms, investigations, etc. etc.

FAIR AND BALANCED 4/24/11

These two stories epitomize the narrative issue to me. First, Fareed Zakaria:

Then there is the ‘birther’ issue. I regard this as coded racism, frankly. I don’t think there’s any other word for it.

For goodness' sake, George Stephanopoulos displayed Obama's Certificate of Live Birth on network TV and this rumor still doesn't die. Put it this way: If the President was a white man named John Smith with the other background issues being the same - foreign student father, mother in Hawaii, etc. - would there be any of these dark insinuations? Trump should be ashamed of himself. But then, I suppose, he wouldn't be Donald Trump.

BTW, not sure about you but I know I've been waiting impatiently for him to finally weigh in! Finally! Next, not an awesome CNN analyst, lowly blogger Tom Maguire:

Yet back in the day, the Times did not assemble a panel to question the sanity of the 9/11 Truthers. Instead, we were given a wry, tongue partly in cheek appraisal of their "work".

I can only imagine your surprise.

ERRATA: Here we have Howard Dean pandering to the truthers on NPR, and John Edwards doing the same at a town hall.

Go to the site for his links, including polls that were almost the same as the birther polls in reverse. Yes, although it seems hardly possible the mainstream media is even more in the tank for this president than they were when they helped him get elected by not completely vetting him (in part due to a fear they would be called racists by the likes of Zakaria).

Birthermania

Trump continues to fan the flames of the birth certificate bonfire, this time with an angry rebuttal letter to Gail Collins of the Times. Ms. Collins then bites back sanctimoniously without the slightest trace of journalistic curiosity. So go the birther wars.

Meanwhile, Jack Cashill--who has done yeoman's work in asking questions that people like Gail Collins should be answering--now has facial egg for failing to notice that a photoshopped picture of a real photo does not prove the real picture is photoshopped. Jack--dude--in the future please get one of your grandkids or some IT geek in the office to look over such things before pulling the trigger.

But back to Collins. In her re-rebuttal letter to Trump she flippantly mentions the "Ayers wrote Dreams" allegation as such:

Ayers is the former ’60s radical who became a huge Republican talking point in 2008 because he had once given a house party for Obama when he was running for state senate. It’s a pretty big jump from coffee and cookies to writing an entire book, but I guess that’s what neighbors are for.

Excuse me ma'am, but Ayers is STILL a radical, he just doesn't blow stuff up anymore. Has the Times laid off their research staff? She then tackles the granny (to her credit, the evidence granny witnessed the birth is unconvincing) and birth cert by only mentioning factcheck.org, which only proved the short form birth cert was real. America still doesn't know from which hospital Obama popped forth or the doctor who popped him forth. And yes, there's a slight significance to that. There was a time when the state of Hawaii didn't even take the state of Hawaii's word on the short form if Hawaiian heritage was being established.

Of course she's not the first mainstreamer (Fox News, too) to simply throw out opinion to rebut these claims. They are are so crazy! But from her picture (probably not recent) she appears to be no spring chicken so perhaps she remembers the old days when a REAL journalist might tackle the controversy by say, setting up a few interviews:

1) State of Hawaii, to ask why they required the long form to claim 'homelands exemption', at least until 2008,
2) Jack Cashill, to discuss his book "Deconstructing Obama",
3) Christopher Andersen, to discuss his book "Barack and Michelle" and the allegation that Ayers ghost wrote "Dreams", which is written right there on the pages (her own paper's Times Book Review didn't bother reviewing it),
4) Bill Ayers himself--perhaps to ask him if he thinks it's weird that Obama's white girlfriend was strangely just like his own,
5) and, after collecting all the info, asking for a response from the administration.

This is how journalism used to work before the reporters started getting their copy off factcheck.org and the Daily Kos.

BACK TO REALITY 4/10/11

We all know the mainstream media will probably never turn back from their thinly-veiled advocacy journalism posture, so it's a waste of time lecturing them about it. All that aside--what's Trump really up to here? The explanations of his little theater production has several possibilities... 1) he really believes it and is trying to help the GOP unseat Obama by deflating this issue ahead of time, but will not run; 2) he really believes it and is planning to run, whose status will be greatly helped by being the one who unearthed the 'truth'; 3) he's playing possum for ratings; 4) he's playing possum to help certain non-birther GOP candidates by trying to lure their on-the-fence competitors into taking a stand, thereby destroying them; 5) he's an undercover Democrat simply trying to keep the story going, just like Abercrombie.

We'll have to watch this story to see if number 4 has any merit.

NBC COMES THROUGH (SORT OF) BUT SO DOES TRUMP.. 4/10/11

It's possible Trump is getting results others could not. NBC's Mike Isikoff did what was suggested above for Ms. Collins--he called someone in the Hawaii Dept of Records and asked some questions. Actually, someone formerly in the records dept, the person who came out in 2008 and said she'd 'seen' the actual birth certificate on file and he was really, really born in Hiwayer. Chiyone Fukino went further than anyone has previously by saying the following:

Before she would do so, Fukino said, she wanted to inspect the files — and did so, taking with her the state official in charge of vital records. She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files. She then put out a public statement asserting to the document's validity. She later put out another public statement in July 2009 — after reviewing the original birth record a second time.

Emphasis added to highlight new information heretofore unreleased. Now, here's what she said back in 2008:

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

This clarified that indeed there was an original, or vault copy but there was no mention of it being impossible to obtain this same long form, and no mention of a doctor or hospital. All she did was confirm the short form was not a fake. Still, it threw most of the media dogs off the hunt along with yours truly (for a long while at least).

Now she's saying the so-called short form was the only document the records department has released since the 80s, therefore Obama could not have gotten anything else. And that's where Isikoff dropped the ball:

On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?

Why indeed. If one goes to the Hawaii records website and reviews the procedure for applying for a "Home Lands exemption" they find a definite clarification between short and long forms:

Birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth and Certifications of Live Birth) and Certificates of Hawaiian Birth are the primary documents used to determine native Hawaiian qualification.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth (original birth certificate) and Certifications of Live Birth because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth. The Certificate of Live Birth generally has more information which is useful for genealogical purposes as compared to the Certification of Live Birth which is a computer-generated printout that provides specific details of a person’s birth. Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.

The problem is, back in 2007 and at least part of 2008 that same page said that applicants HAD to provide a long form to apply, the short form was simply not detailed enough. The evidence for this change has largely been wiped off the web but a few sites saved some quotes. World Nut Daily claims it was somewhere in mid 2009, but we all know their rep. So it was a question Isikoff should have asked, but didn't. Maybe he didn't want to know.

The pushback for the change was that it wasn't really a change at all, just an oversight; a rogue 'obsolete' page on the state's website they "cleaned up" somewhere around 2009. Are we to believe that obsolete page had been there with erroneous information since 2001 when Hawaii first started issuing the computerized short form? Why wouldn't Phillip Berg's initial investigation have brought it to light in mid 2008 and forced a change? Another question Isikoff needed to ask.

At any rate they now allow both short and long forms to be used on the "updated" the Home Lands web page, even though one can no longer obtain a long form. Another question Isikoff didn't ask.

But props to NBC--they actually practiced journalism by contacting someone other than MarKos. In the process they got a former official to admit that a physician attended Obama's birth, something heretofore yet confirmed. Props also to Trump for this gem, which no doubt would not have tumbled out without his making a fuss.

And it could be very useful. The admission there was a doctor present indicates that Obama may well have been playing possum with this issue all along, perhaps planning to spring it at some crucial moment next year. GOP candidates still holding any doubts about this issue would do well to heed this admission and back as far away as possible and leave Obama standing there holding that trump card all by himself.

Trumped

What in the world is he up to? Can anyone imagine him having the patience to not only run, but to govern? Doesn't he understand that we have a president, not a supreme leader?

He's not running. He just can't be. So it's hard to figure why he would suddenly take on the birther cause. Some say for the publicity; yes, he's a master of PR and attention, but there are much easier and less risky ways to get it than going down this bumpy road.

Perhaps it's because he knows that by taking on a taboo subject others won't touch it will make him instantly the stand out guy, with the birther stuff not really bothering most conservatives. That would make sense if he were really running. But he's not. Even still, surely he's had private conversations with GOP movers and shakers about this birther stuff and he might know a thing or two about who really thinks what. Maybe he also knows what the Obama machine and their mainstream media wing are planning to do with all of this in the upcoming election cycle.

For example, it's not hard to imagine that every single GOP candidate will be given a birther litmus test by the press. If they answer too definitively it could be seen as a slam on part of the base ("of course I'm not nuts like those people", etc). But if they answer too wafflely it gets them nutter status from the left and could even be used against them by other primary candidates. It's a tight rope!

So maybe Trump is trying to deflate this balloon before it becomes the Hindenberg. Only a birther with his status could crack the big media bubble and be given the time to challenge the narrative without being yanked off the set. They all respect his business acumen too much to go nuclear--yet. So maybe the plan is that by making this an issue now (where was he a few years ago, for instance) it could force Obama to play his own 'trump card' too early--in response to his persistence and threats--thereby removing it from play when the real war begins.

Otherwise, we're left to believe the absurd--that he's really running and is simply rich and powerful enough to get away with challenging the first black president's bona fides, which propels him to the top of the pack. In this day and age that could be called courage--unless of course he's acting for the Democrats under deep cover....