A few months ago, with his usual hyperbole Donald Trump boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him. Sadly, I think he’s probably right. What’s becoming more apparent every day however is that Hillary Clinton could probably make the same boast with equal accuracy.
Why do I say that? Well, the first point is that Clinton is the nominee at all. Given the disaster Libya has become, given the events of Benghazi in 2012 and her proven lies about it, given the fact that ISIS is a direct result of the Obama Administration’s exit from Iraq – during her tenure – one has to wonder how she even made it past the first set of primaries. How is it that there was no other candidate who could come even close to beating her? While the cards were in fact stacked in her favor, while Bernie Sanders appealed to a small segment of the Democrat party, elsewhere there was never any real clamor for another candidate. Ask yourself, if Benghazi had been a GOP operation, would the Secretary of State overseeing it have been the GOP nominee four years later? Can you imagine the withering attacks he or she would have endured from the press? No chance they would have survived past March. Can you imagine the grilling a GOP Sec of State would take if he told the parents of one of the dead a lie just moments before telling her family the truth, then turned around and lied to the nation? Of course… but Clinton had to face none of that.
Next, her email problems have been in the air for years. It’s obvious to anyone other than the willingly blind that she set up that server for the specific purpose of hiding her correspondence from the prying eyes of Congress and pesky reporters with the FOI requests. And as has now been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, she lied to Congress and the American people and maybe even the FBI about her handling of Top Secret information. How is it possible that supporters feel that someone who has such little regard for American secrets should be in charge of the entire American intelligence apparatus? The security apparatus? The justice apparatus? Can you imagine the press coverage if a Republican was responsible for a breach that may have caused the death of an Iranian scientist helping the United States? With Clinton, little more than crickets.
How about the Russian Reset? Clinton famously kicked off the Russian Reset which was supposed to begin a new cooperative friendship between the US and Russia. Since then Russia has been anything but friendly. They’ve hacked American government computers, used gas as a weapon to intimidate Europe, they’ve threatened the Baltics and they’ve been harassing American diplomats across Europe. And don’t forget, a year after she left office our new Russian friends invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, That certainly seems like she built a strong foundation of friendship.
And finally then there’s the Clinton Foundation, that billion dollar vehicle largely funded by groups – read Wall Street banks and Middle Eastern governments – who are ostensibly anathema to her basic “principles” of support for the middle class and poor against the rich and support for gay rights. The fact that the foundation seems to be little more than a vehicle for enriching the Clintons, and is now under investigation by the FBI, New York, Washington and Little Rock seems to bother no one on the left.
Getting back to the shooting of someone on 5th Avenue. Hillary Clinton is not Donald Trump. While they both may be lying, manipulative Democrats, that’s not the point. He sits at the head of a cult of personality that animates thousands of people to show up for his rallies. She is at the head of a borg where the hundreds of people who attend her rallies look as if they are punching the clock and can’t wait for the end of day whistle. If he were to die the air in the Trump movement would dissipate quickly and the GOP would find itself struggling to find a replacement who could carry the party to victory. If, on the other hand, Hillary Clinton were to die the Democrats would simply push her corpse to the side, take down the generic Clinton logo and put in her place the next functionary and things would move forward as if nothing had happened.
And that’s the point. Hillary Clinton is not inspiring anyone. She is taking her turn. She is the opposition of anything that is proffered by the GOP, regardless of who they trot out. (You may think their demonizing is Trump specific… It’s not. Remember what they did to Mitt Romney.) Like the mind numbed audience in Apple’s debut commercial in 1984… or the zombies in book itself, Democrats step in and vote for whoever is on the ticket, regardless of who that person is. And in this case of it’s Hillary Clinton. It’ doesn’t really matter what she’s done, what she’s “accomplished’ or what she stands for – if anything – the only thing that matters is that she’s not the Republican. If there was video of Clinton shooting the guy on 5th Avenue could she really still get elected and would the robot Democrats vote for her anyway? If the guy was wearing a Trump shirt I’m pretty sure they would. One has to wonder what the playing field would look like if the GOP had nominated a real conservative to oppose the borg...
Showing posts with label Benghazi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benghazi. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2016
Monday, April 13, 2015
"Mr. Smith, do you still beat your wife?" and other lies the GOP must contend with in order to win in 2016
The lies of the left drive American politics. For years we heard the “Bush Lied” mantra chanted endlessly. It didn’t matter that the claim was wrong. A lie is a very specific thing… Saying a falsehood when you know it to be wrong. Bush never did that. While in retrospect the question of Saddam’s WMDs is unclear, at the time George Bush, Bill Clinton and the intelligence agencies of most of the world believed he did. There is a difference between being wrong and lying… but the left doesn’t care about truth when a lie better serves their purposes, whether it’s WMDs, the “rape culture”, the “war on women” or blaming Benghazi on a video.
Two illustrative examples can be found in Ferguson, MO and Indiana. One was the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” meme that played itself out everywhere from the House chamber to the NFL and countless places and broadcasts across the country. Of course the basic premise was a complete lie, and an easily known one at that, but that didn’t matter. There was little hard reporting by the mainstream press to illuminate that fact because it supported their political agenda.
Similarly a similar scenario played itself out on the national stage recently when Indiana passed its Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Across the mainstream media and the left (sorry for being redundant) cries of discrimination could be heard. The suggestion was that the RFRA would allow any business to choose not to serve gay customers simply because they were gay. That was a lie. The legislation did nothing of the kind. It simply protected from suit or prosecution those whose believed their religion was against gay marriage and therefore declined to participate in the wedding or its various supporting activities. The difference may be subtle, but it’s distinct. Not that that matters to the left because fealty to the truth are foreign concepts to them.
Why does any of this matter? Because government responds to the voices of the people, eventually. We got the disaster of Obamacare because the left convinced enough people that the failures of the healthcare marketplace were due to insufficient regulation, despite the fact that the opposite was true. We got Dodd-Frank because the left convinced enough people that the financial collapse of 2007 / 2008 was due to a lack of regulation when in reality the opposite was true. Even now Barack Obama is ramping up his push of the fictional “global warming” agenda because he buys into the hoax that’s been foisted on the nation over the last two decades despite overwhelming evidence that no such warming exists.
In modern day America reality is no longer the driving force for policy, instead it’s whatever the left says it is, factual or otherwise. Even when it comes to the GOP, they play according to the rules established by the left rather than dealing the reality most Americans actually live with. And that’s a problem… for the GOP and the country. If the GOP agrees to play by the ground rules set by the left, they will have handed victory to Hillary or Pocahontas or whoever emerges from the cesspool of the Democrat party.
2016 promises to be the single most defining election in a century and a half. The choice will be between continuing down our current path that inevitably leads to a fascist state where economics and culture are dictated by whatever the left deems is acceptable, or returning to a path ordered by limited government and individual rights. But that choice only exists if the GOP is willing to stand up and make the argument for freedom.
In both 2008 and 2012 the GOP candidates allowed the left to set the agenda and played a defensive game throughout. Defense may be the winning strategy in the NFL, but it’s not in national politics. It is preordained that the GOP is going to be labeled racist, sexist and homophobic. The left and the media (again… apologies for the redundancy) will no doubt seek to portray the GOP as the party of the rich that cares not for the pain and suffering of the poor. Like the innocent man who spends his time answering “no” to the question “Mr. Smith, do you still beat your wife?” rather than disputing the premise of the question in the first place, if the GOP allows the left to define the parameters of the campaign they’ve lost before the nominee is even selected.
During the run up to the convention and through to the general election, the GOP candidates have to be willing to take the slings and arrows that come with saying that Michael Brown was not the “Gentle Giant” the left has made him out to be and that his death was directly related to his actions, not his skin color. They must be willing to withstand the vitriol directed at them as they articulate the difference between discrimination against gays and the religious freedom that protects Christians from being forced to participate in gay “marriage” activities. They must be willing to endure the accusations of racism that would follow any suggestion that the need for strengthening the southern border is a matter of national security.
Whoever the eventual GOP nominee is, he or she will have the most fertile soil to till since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Eight years of Barack Obama will have set the lines stark, between economic fascism and free markets, between cultural coercion and individual rights, between international retreat and international leadership. The challenge for the GOP will be to articulate conservative positions that offer the greatest prospect for prosperity but rarely fit easily on a bumper sticker like “Coexist” or “Hope”. Not only will they have to figure out how to make the arguments in a way that a majority of Americans can understand and embrace, they’ll have to do so while facing a media that is lined up against them from the start and who is actively carrying water for the other side. The first step to doing so would be learning that the right answer to the question “Mr. Smith, do you still beat your wife?” is not no, but “I reject the basic premise of your question and here’s why…”.
Two illustrative examples can be found in Ferguson, MO and Indiana. One was the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” meme that played itself out everywhere from the House chamber to the NFL and countless places and broadcasts across the country. Of course the basic premise was a complete lie, and an easily known one at that, but that didn’t matter. There was little hard reporting by the mainstream press to illuminate that fact because it supported their political agenda.
Why does any of this matter? Because government responds to the voices of the people, eventually. We got the disaster of Obamacare because the left convinced enough people that the failures of the healthcare marketplace were due to insufficient regulation, despite the fact that the opposite was true. We got Dodd-Frank because the left convinced enough people that the financial collapse of 2007 / 2008 was due to a lack of regulation when in reality the opposite was true. Even now Barack Obama is ramping up his push of the fictional “global warming” agenda because he buys into the hoax that’s been foisted on the nation over the last two decades despite overwhelming evidence that no such warming exists.
In modern day America reality is no longer the driving force for policy, instead it’s whatever the left says it is, factual or otherwise. Even when it comes to the GOP, they play according to the rules established by the left rather than dealing the reality most Americans actually live with. And that’s a problem… for the GOP and the country. If the GOP agrees to play by the ground rules set by the left, they will have handed victory to Hillary or Pocahontas or whoever emerges from the cesspool of the Democrat party.
2016 promises to be the single most defining election in a century and a half. The choice will be between continuing down our current path that inevitably leads to a fascist state where economics and culture are dictated by whatever the left deems is acceptable, or returning to a path ordered by limited government and individual rights. But that choice only exists if the GOP is willing to stand up and make the argument for freedom.
In both 2008 and 2012 the GOP candidates allowed the left to set the agenda and played a defensive game throughout. Defense may be the winning strategy in the NFL, but it’s not in national politics. It is preordained that the GOP is going to be labeled racist, sexist and homophobic. The left and the media (again… apologies for the redundancy) will no doubt seek to portray the GOP as the party of the rich that cares not for the pain and suffering of the poor. Like the innocent man who spends his time answering “no” to the question “Mr. Smith, do you still beat your wife?” rather than disputing the premise of the question in the first place, if the GOP allows the left to define the parameters of the campaign they’ve lost before the nominee is even selected.
During the run up to the convention and through to the general election, the GOP candidates have to be willing to take the slings and arrows that come with saying that Michael Brown was not the “Gentle Giant” the left has made him out to be and that his death was directly related to his actions, not his skin color. They must be willing to withstand the vitriol directed at them as they articulate the difference between discrimination against gays and the religious freedom that protects Christians from being forced to participate in gay “marriage” activities. They must be willing to endure the accusations of racism that would follow any suggestion that the need for strengthening the southern border is a matter of national security.
Whoever the eventual GOP nominee is, he or she will have the most fertile soil to till since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Eight years of Barack Obama will have set the lines stark, between economic fascism and free markets, between cultural coercion and individual rights, between international retreat and international leadership. The challenge for the GOP will be to articulate conservative positions that offer the greatest prospect for prosperity but rarely fit easily on a bumper sticker like “Coexist” or “Hope”. Not only will they have to figure out how to make the arguments in a way that a majority of Americans can understand and embrace, they’ll have to do so while facing a media that is lined up against them from the start and who is actively carrying water for the other side. The first step to doing so would be learning that the right answer to the question “Mr. Smith, do you still beat your wife?” is not no, but “I reject the basic premise of your question and here’s why…”.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Why I'm beginning to disagree with Sarah Palin about the impeachment of Barack Obama
I love Sarah Palin, but I’m beginning to disagree with her on impeachment.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says the following about impeachment: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. The House of Representatives has the sole power to impeach and the Senate the sole power to convict.
I’ve thought for some time that Barack Obama should be impeached. The IRS scandal alone was far worse than anything Richard Nixon ever did, or even thought of doing. Unfortunately we don’t thus far have a smoking gun. Benghazi may meet the threshold as well on the basis of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in the dereliction of duty as Commander in Chief. Then of course there is the deluge of Obamacare violations. Repeatedly the law says one thing and Obama has done the opposite.
While I have no doubt Barack Obama deserves to be impeached, I’m no longer sure that he should be. It is most certain that the Republicans in the House could gather the votes to impeach. The point of impeachment however is not impeachment... it's conviction. Unfortunately however there is no way in hell that it would be possible today to get 67 votes for conviction in Senate. Former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards once said about his reelection prospects: "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy". Barack Obama might paraphrase that in reference to his conviction prospects in the Senate. Although I’m skeptical that even then the Senate would convict…
It’s not because I’m afraid he won’t get convicted that I no longer believe he should be impeached however. It’s because I no longer think it’s necessary. Why? Because Barack Obama is a lame duck. Not just lame in the traditional sense of presidents being lame in their second terms. But lame in the sense of being broken. Today his approval rating sits at 39%, the lowest of his presidency. While there seems to be a subset of Americans, about 40% of the population, who seem incapable of recognizing, or refusing to recognize incompetence when they see it, Barack Obama is making it much more difficult for those misguided souls to keep their heads in the sand. His incompetence and perfidy are becoming legion. Obamacare alone would make the case… and consumers will be livid when their subsidies evaporate. Then there’s the administration’s stonewalling in the IRS scandal investigation as more and more information emerges demonstrating its betrayal of our Constitution. Then there’s the chaos in Iraq and reversals in Afghanistan. His bludgeoning of Israel in its battle with Hamas. His impotent response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression and the shooting down of flight MH17. But perhaps most of all, Barack Obama’s betrayal of the American people can be seen in his efforts to “transform” the United States into a third world country by essentially eliminating our southern border while simultaneously inviting every Central American child to swim across the Rio Grande and become a Dreamer.
And that's the reason why Barack Obama should not be impeached. Because while the country and the world are in the grip of chaos and worse, he’s busy… playing golf. He’s attending fundraisers. He’s going on vacation and buying a $4.5 million home in Palm Springs. And Americans can see that. They see his indifferent attitude towards actually solving problems or leading, whether it’s the collapse of the border or the fires burning across the footprint of the Ottoman Empire. Even those predisposed to worship at the altar of Barack Obama can’t help but recognize his disinterest in the duties of actually governing. And that’s the point. To paraphrase Napoleon, When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, don’t interfere.
Were the GOP to impeach Barack Obama now they would not only be interfering with Barack Obama’s immolation of his legacy, they would be throwing him a life preserver. The debate would suddenly shift from the reality of Obama’s incompetence to the fiction that he is being persecuted because of his race. That is perhaps the only thing worse than the nation collapsing under Barack Obama’s stewardship… the nation collapsing under Barack Obama’s stewardship and no one paying attention to the fact that it’s Barack Obama who’s causing the collapse.
Now this calculation could change. If we find an IRS smoking gun with Obama’s prints on it that even hardcore leftists can’t ignore, then impeach him. Absent something like that however there is no reason to rescue Obama from the morass he has brought upon himself. Doing so won’t help the country and will only turn him into a victim and help obscure his reputation for posterity. And that would be the ultimate disaster as future generations would never see the abject failure that was the anti-American presidency of Barack Obama, but instead would read about the heroic legacy of a black man persecuted for his race who was never given a chance.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says the following about impeachment: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. The House of Representatives has the sole power to impeach and the Senate the sole power to convict.
I’ve thought for some time that Barack Obama should be impeached. The IRS scandal alone was far worse than anything Richard Nixon ever did, or even thought of doing. Unfortunately we don’t thus far have a smoking gun. Benghazi may meet the threshold as well on the basis of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in the dereliction of duty as Commander in Chief. Then of course there is the deluge of Obamacare violations. Repeatedly the law says one thing and Obama has done the opposite.
While I have no doubt Barack Obama deserves to be impeached, I’m no longer sure that he should be. It is most certain that the Republicans in the House could gather the votes to impeach. The point of impeachment however is not impeachment... it's conviction. Unfortunately however there is no way in hell that it would be possible today to get 67 votes for conviction in Senate. Former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards once said about his reelection prospects: "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy". Barack Obama might paraphrase that in reference to his conviction prospects in the Senate. Although I’m skeptical that even then the Senate would convict…
And that's the reason why Barack Obama should not be impeached. Because while the country and the world are in the grip of chaos and worse, he’s busy… playing golf. He’s attending fundraisers. He’s going on vacation and buying a $4.5 million home in Palm Springs. And Americans can see that. They see his indifferent attitude towards actually solving problems or leading, whether it’s the collapse of the border or the fires burning across the footprint of the Ottoman Empire. Even those predisposed to worship at the altar of Barack Obama can’t help but recognize his disinterest in the duties of actually governing. And that’s the point. To paraphrase Napoleon, When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, don’t interfere.
Were the GOP to impeach Barack Obama now they would not only be interfering with Barack Obama’s immolation of his legacy, they would be throwing him a life preserver. The debate would suddenly shift from the reality of Obama’s incompetence to the fiction that he is being persecuted because of his race. That is perhaps the only thing worse than the nation collapsing under Barack Obama’s stewardship… the nation collapsing under Barack Obama’s stewardship and no one paying attention to the fact that it’s Barack Obama who’s causing the collapse.
Now this calculation could change. If we find an IRS smoking gun with Obama’s prints on it that even hardcore leftists can’t ignore, then impeach him. Absent something like that however there is no reason to rescue Obama from the morass he has brought upon himself. Doing so won’t help the country and will only turn him into a victim and help obscure his reputation for posterity. And that would be the ultimate disaster as future generations would never see the abject failure that was the anti-American presidency of Barack Obama, but instead would read about the heroic legacy of a black man persecuted for his race who was never given a chance.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Barack Obama - the ESPN President
I’m a big fan of Matt Damon movies. I’m not however a big fan of Matt Damon’s politics. But that’s OK with me. It’s a relationship that works well for both of us. He gets my money when I’m watching Bourne Identity or Ocean’s 11 and he uses that money and fame to find a bigger soapbox from which to spout comments that I usually ignore.
In the same respect, if you’re a fan of sports there are probably a couple players in the NFL or the NBA who you enjoy watching and are glad they are on your team, but you wouldn’t let them within a mile of your daughter. That’s OK too. Owners don’t pay them to be great sons in law. They’re paid to perform on the field of play. They can then take that money and fame and do whatever they want without involving you at all. You get entertained and they get multimillion dollar contracts and date women who are not your daughters. Everyone wins.
Not all arrangements work out that well. Sometimes what people get paid to do and what they spend their time doing are two different things. I was reminded of something about Barack Obama this week. When he wants to be, he can be very, very good. The president had a press conference with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. That ten minute conference was outstanding. Although he did have prepared remarks, there was not a teleprompter in sight. While the notes were in front of him, it was obvious he was familiar with the goings on of both the game itself and the team, including Richard Sherman’s post game “conversation”, Russell Wilson’s new hair (or lack thereof) and the lengths to which Paul Allen might go to help his team win. I almost expected him to ask some of the players to come out to the south lawn to play a pickup game. Without a doubt, Barack Obama was very much in his element.
The thing that I was reminded about was the fact that Barack Obama is an incredible sports fan. ESPN even has the annual “Barack-etology” where the president fills out his bracket. The thing that one can’t escape is that Barack knows his basketball. He knows the players, he knows the coaches, the records and the streaks and all of it is done without notes.
Barack Obama was born to be an ESPN host. Unfortunately, however, that’s not what he gets paid for. He gets paid to be the President of the United States. And unlike Matt Damon and lots of players in the NFL and the NBA, he’s not very good at his job.
How does one know that Barack Obama is not very good at his job? Because he never knows what’s going on in the organization he’s paid to lead. Fast and Furious? The president heard about it on the news. The IRS Tea Party targeting scandal? The president heard about it on the news. The DOJ AP snooping scandal? The president heard about it on the news. The VA scandal resulting in the deaths of dozens of veterans? The president heard about it on the news. He must have forgotten about this one as he campaigned on it in 2007 and was formally informed about it by the Bush Administration in 2008.
Then of course there is Benghazi where no one has a clue where the president was while the whole thing was going on... but we know he wasn't in the Situation Room. And Obamacare where the president either lied or didn’t have a clue about the program when he promised Americans they would get lower healthcare costs, they could keep their doctors and they could keep their insurance.
So my question is, is anyone besides me upset that Barack Obama, the guy who is paid to be President of the United States seems to know practically nothing about anything that goes on in his administration until he reads about it on the news, but he could fill in for Colin Coward at the drop of a hat if the ESPN host got hit by a truck? Does it bother anyone else that Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world seems far more engaged in discussing the potential outcomes of a basketball tournament than he does discussing the outcomes of his disastrous policies? Is it a problem for anyone else that Barack Obama seems more comfortable on a golf course than he does actually running the affairs of the nation?
Sports is a very much an honorable business to be in. As a matter of fact, as a conservative I love the sports business because it is one of the few places left in the economy where hard work, achievement and success are rewarded largely based on merit and without the cancerous concerns of political correctness. As such, I’d like to suggest that Barack Obama leave the White House and begin a new career at ESPN. Americans would be better off as the Biden would fumble the implementation of Obama’s crippling policies and sports fans would have the benefit of a great communicator who knows sports like the back of his hand. That sounds like a win-win for everyone involved…
In the same respect, if you’re a fan of sports there are probably a couple players in the NFL or the NBA who you enjoy watching and are glad they are on your team, but you wouldn’t let them within a mile of your daughter. That’s OK too. Owners don’t pay them to be great sons in law. They’re paid to perform on the field of play. They can then take that money and fame and do whatever they want without involving you at all. You get entertained and they get multimillion dollar contracts and date women who are not your daughters. Everyone wins.
The thing that I was reminded about was the fact that Barack Obama is an incredible sports fan. ESPN even has the annual “Barack-etology” where the president fills out his bracket. The thing that one can’t escape is that Barack knows his basketball. He knows the players, he knows the coaches, the records and the streaks and all of it is done without notes.
Barack Obama was born to be an ESPN host. Unfortunately, however, that’s not what he gets paid for. He gets paid to be the President of the United States. And unlike Matt Damon and lots of players in the NFL and the NBA, he’s not very good at his job.
How does one know that Barack Obama is not very good at his job? Because he never knows what’s going on in the organization he’s paid to lead. Fast and Furious? The president heard about it on the news. The IRS Tea Party targeting scandal? The president heard about it on the news. The DOJ AP snooping scandal? The president heard about it on the news. The VA scandal resulting in the deaths of dozens of veterans? The president heard about it on the news. He must have forgotten about this one as he campaigned on it in 2007 and was formally informed about it by the Bush Administration in 2008.
Then of course there is Benghazi where no one has a clue where the president was while the whole thing was going on... but we know he wasn't in the Situation Room. And Obamacare where the president either lied or didn’t have a clue about the program when he promised Americans they would get lower healthcare costs, they could keep their doctors and they could keep their insurance.
Sports is a very much an honorable business to be in. As a matter of fact, as a conservative I love the sports business because it is one of the few places left in the economy where hard work, achievement and success are rewarded largely based on merit and without the cancerous concerns of political correctness. As such, I’d like to suggest that Barack Obama leave the White House and begin a new career at ESPN. Americans would be better off as the Biden would fumble the implementation of Obama’s crippling policies and sports fans would have the benefit of a great communicator who knows sports like the back of his hand. That sounds like a win-win for everyone involved…
Monday, May 5, 2014
Barack Obama, 2016 and the Burning of the Reichstag
Let’s face it, most Americans expect our politicians to lie. At least about the little things. Typically politicians try to keep things opaque so that they can easily massage the historical record once things don’t work out or the winds change. “I’ll put America back to work”. “I’ll bring home jobs.” “I support a fair tax system.” “I support education & women’s rights.” The less precise that a politician’s statements, the fewer people they will alienate, and in an American political universe of negative campaigns, that often seems to be the road most traveled. We expect them to lie about little things, but be aboveboard about the big, important things.
Then there is Barack Obama. News came out this week that provided confirmation that the Obama administration lied to the American people about Benghazi. On September 16, 2012 Susan Rice made the rounds of five talk shows telling the nation the attack on Benghazi that took the lives of 4 Americans was the result of spontaneous protests in response to an anti Islamic YouTube video. To many people that seemed absurd, but some were unsure and were willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. When it became clear that that narrative was simply false, the administration claimed that the talking points were directed by the State Department and the CIA. On Tuesday that was proved a lie as an email from the White House addresses Benghazi specifically in terms of blaming the video and not terrorism or policy failures.
This fits a pattern for this White House. And what makes it so perfidious is that it’s not to protect the country, but rather to save Barack Obama’s political skin. Again and again they have lied to the American people about big things, important things. And it’s gotten worse over time. At first it was passing of Obamacare, something sufficiently incomprehensible that Nancy Pelosi said “We have to pass it so we can find out what’s in it.” Barack Obama promised If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor and If you like your insurance, you can keep it despite the fact that the administration knew that to be specifically false.
Then it was using the police power of the government, embodied by the IRS, to seek to shut down the voice of their opponents. Certainly Americans would not be surprised that political opponents of a president sometimes find themselves being audited. But this was much more than auditing. This was the government seeking to use its power to muzzle opponents by limiting their ability to raise funding. And of course Barack Obama assured the American people that there was nothing political going on. In a free nation is there any more pernicious act than a government using its police power to repress its opposition? No. In America where we spend about as much on political campaigns as we do on chewing gum annually, even a modest limitation on the spending of your opponents can pay handsome rewards.
And now the most treacherous if not traitorous thing of all is the abject manipulation of the truth about the death of a US Ambassador in order to sway an election. We now have proof that six weeks before the 2012 election the White House manipulated the media and the message related to Benghazi for the specific purpose of supporting the illusion of Barack Obama’s foreign policy competence and his claim that al Qaeda was on the run and had been “decimated”.
So the question is, now that the election is over, what’s next? We already know from his own message to Putin that he believes he has greater flexibility now. Since there is no pending election through which the American people might put him in the unemployment line, what limits exist? He has pushed the envelope from taking away liberties to oppressing opponents to lying about his administration’s responsibility for the loss of life of a US Ambassador and three others. It’s not likely that he can get a repeal of the 22nd Amendment through, but one has to wonder, could he or would he manufacture some crisis that would cause the election of 2016 to be postponed? Perhaps indefinitely? Is it possible that the DHS might use events like the one down in Nevada with Cliven Bundy and his supporters to implement some sort of unprecedented nationwide emergency powers to battle people the DHS already considers potential terrorists… You know, like veterans or anti-abortion activists or border enforcement types? Is it possible that he could fall back on his community organizing skills to inflame his supporters to occupy government buildings around the country and demand changes as the students did at Columbia in 1968?
Sure, this might sound farfetched, but we’ve covered a lot of ground towards fascism over the last six years. No one gets elected in a democracy saying “I want to take away your rights” although they often do get elected saying they are going to take away someone else’s. Once they have their hands on the reins of power however, particularly of the DOD and DHS, it’s only a president’s integrity and appreciation for America’s greatness above their own that keeps him from seeking to manipulate the levers to extend his stay. (Remember, Nixon left without putting up a fight beyond the courtroom.) With Barack Obama, a man with little compunction about lying, an ego that makes Donald Trump look like a wallflower and who has both a disdain for the Constitution and a love affair with Executive Orders, I find myself a little concerned about the potential for a contrived American version of the burning of the Reichstag.
Then there is Barack Obama. News came out this week that provided confirmation that the Obama administration lied to the American people about Benghazi. On September 16, 2012 Susan Rice made the rounds of five talk shows telling the nation the attack on Benghazi that took the lives of 4 Americans was the result of spontaneous protests in response to an anti Islamic YouTube video. To many people that seemed absurd, but some were unsure and were willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. When it became clear that that narrative was simply false, the administration claimed that the talking points were directed by the State Department and the CIA. On Tuesday that was proved a lie as an email from the White House addresses Benghazi specifically in terms of blaming the video and not terrorism or policy failures.
This fits a pattern for this White House. And what makes it so perfidious is that it’s not to protect the country, but rather to save Barack Obama’s political skin. Again and again they have lied to the American people about big things, important things. And it’s gotten worse over time. At first it was passing of Obamacare, something sufficiently incomprehensible that Nancy Pelosi said “We have to pass it so we can find out what’s in it.” Barack Obama promised If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor and If you like your insurance, you can keep it despite the fact that the administration knew that to be specifically false.
And now the most treacherous if not traitorous thing of all is the abject manipulation of the truth about the death of a US Ambassador in order to sway an election. We now have proof that six weeks before the 2012 election the White House manipulated the media and the message related to Benghazi for the specific purpose of supporting the illusion of Barack Obama’s foreign policy competence and his claim that al Qaeda was on the run and had been “decimated”.
So the question is, now that the election is over, what’s next? We already know from his own message to Putin that he believes he has greater flexibility now. Since there is no pending election through which the American people might put him in the unemployment line, what limits exist? He has pushed the envelope from taking away liberties to oppressing opponents to lying about his administration’s responsibility for the loss of life of a US Ambassador and three others. It’s not likely that he can get a repeal of the 22nd Amendment through, but one has to wonder, could he or would he manufacture some crisis that would cause the election of 2016 to be postponed? Perhaps indefinitely? Is it possible that the DHS might use events like the one down in Nevada with Cliven Bundy and his supporters to implement some sort of unprecedented nationwide emergency powers to battle people the DHS already considers potential terrorists… You know, like veterans or anti-abortion activists or border enforcement types? Is it possible that he could fall back on his community organizing skills to inflame his supporters to occupy government buildings around the country and demand changes as the students did at Columbia in 1968?
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Barack Obama and Benghazi: What is the body count that separates a president from a candidate?
There have been three different parts to the Benghazi story. Not surprisingly, Barack Obama has managed to fail spectacularly in all three.
The first aspect of this failure has to do with the run-up to September 11th. Given terrorist’s general penchant for anniversaries and the fact that September 11th is such a trophy date for them, the Obama administration should have had every American embassy and consulate on the highest security level possible, with terrorist friendly places like Libya, practically on lockdown. Add to that the chaos associated with the fledgling government and Libya should have been ground zero for extra security measures.
Sadly, it was not. The State Department, in the specific person of Hillary Clinton, denied repeated requests for increased security. Indeed the American mission at Benghazi "was like a cardboard building, there wasn't even bullet proof glass” and security personnel “were not even allowed to have bullets”.
The second aspect of failure at Benghazi was the response to the attacks themselves. The attack on the American compound began on September 11th at 9:40 PM local time, 3:40 Eastern time. In addition to dozens of people storming the front entrance to the compound the attack included small arms fire, mortars and RPG rounds. By 6:00 AM local time the attacks on the compound and the annex were essentially over and the survivors were being transported to the airport. During the 8 hour siege no support came from outside of Libya – although a six man security team from Tripoli (including 2 DOD employees) arrived at 1:30 AM to help evacuate personnel and retrieve bodies of those killed, including Ambassador Stevens. There was however never any military support sent. Of note is the fact that 3 hours after the attacks began, the Secretary of Defense ordered anti-terrorism security teams sent from Spain, but five hours later, by which time the attacks were over, they had not even gotten off of the ground. More consequentially however is the fact that prior to the attack on the annex a Special Forces unit in Tripoli was preparing to fly to Benghazi. They too never got off the ground because they were told to stand down, that they couldn’t go because they didn’t have authority. This is in stark contrast to the administration’s claim that no one was ever given a stand down order and that all available resources were used.
The third aspect of failure, and the most consequential for the American people as a whole, although certainly not for the families of the victims of the attacks, is the obfuscation and cover-up. Coming just 2 months before the presidential election, Barack Obama made the conscious decision to lie to the American people. Indeed, in an attempt to further his administration’s fiction that terrorism was on the wane and that America was once again loved around the world, Barack Obama tried to pretend as if nothing of consequence had happened as he jetted off to Vegas on a campaign stop. What’s worse, five days later, despite knowledge to the contrary, he trotted Susan Rice out in front of the nation to lie and blame the events in Benghazi on a YouTube video. Later, Hillary Clinton claimed that she had never denied any increased security requests from Libya. Today, eight months later we know that both were lies.
What is particularly disturbing about the events surrounding Benghazi is that they are sequential, i.e. they compound one another. After any one of the three they could have decided to make good, honest decisions. They didn’t and taken as a whole the Benghazi affair is a disaster. We all know that mistakes get made in life and in any organization, government or otherwise. As they say, nobody is perfect and we should not expect our politicians to be so. And we don’t. We do however expect them to be competent and honest. In this case Barack Obama and his administration showed themselves to be not only imperfect, but incompetent, dishonest, and most of all, self-servingly callous with the lives of four Americans who were in Benghazi serving as representatives of the American people.
It’s possible for Americans to believe that in the chaos of Libya in the summer of 2012, that somehow security measures were not quite what they should have been or that the security in place seemed adequate but turned out to fail in a perfect storm of events. After all, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy”.
What’s not possible for Americans to believe however is that in the midst of a raging battle of unknown duration, the President of the United States would refuse to allow Special Forces to attempt to protect and rescue those Americans who were being attacked. From the very beginning the administration understood the gravity of the situation – both on the ground and for their campaign. Rather than jettison the fiction of a terrorism free middle east, the president choose to order reinforcements to stand down. Additionally, later pronouncements that military aid from outside Libya would not have arrived in time are simply absurd. As far as we know the terrorists do not punch clocks for an 8 hour shift of causing mayhem. By definition a terrorist attack timetable is not coordinated with the victims beforehand. In the middle of the battle there was no way of knowing if it would last 5 more hours or 5 more days. In that light the decision to refuse reinforcements shows Barack Obama to be at best an incompetent Commander in Chief and at worst a narcissistic politician for whom his power is the only issue of concern.
Finally there is the cover-up. Every American understands that safety and security are messy affairs and that tragedy occurs and people die, often brave people who have willingly borne the burden of defending us. While Americans might be able to accept as human the misjudgments in preparation in the run up to September 11th, and while they might reluctantly accept the fact that they have elected an incompetent Commander in Chief, they will not, or at least should not, accept a president who, when four Americans die on his watch, lies to the American people about the cause so that he can win reelection. At some point you have to ask, is there nothing that rises above politics? What is the body count that separates the president from the candidate? What if the number had been 8 victims? Would 16 victims have been enough bloodshed to cause him to delay his trip to Las Vegas? Had 20 Americans died would they still have dared to blame it on the video?
Barack Obama has shown himself to be an incompetent president, an ineffectual Commander in Chief and most of all a pernicious politician. One has to wonder where things will go from here. Say what you will about Richard Nixon, when the time came he at least knew when the game was up and had the grace not to drag the nation into a constitutional crisis. If we get to that point with Barack Obama one wonders if grace will emerge as one of the character traits that’s been hidden for the last five years… Don’t count on it.
The first aspect of this failure has to do with the run-up to September 11th. Given terrorist’s general penchant for anniversaries and the fact that September 11th is such a trophy date for them, the Obama administration should have had every American embassy and consulate on the highest security level possible, with terrorist friendly places like Libya, practically on lockdown. Add to that the chaos associated with the fledgling government and Libya should have been ground zero for extra security measures.
Sadly, it was not. The State Department, in the specific person of Hillary Clinton, denied repeated requests for increased security. Indeed the American mission at Benghazi "was like a cardboard building, there wasn't even bullet proof glass” and security personnel “were not even allowed to have bullets”.
The second aspect of failure at Benghazi was the response to the attacks themselves. The attack on the American compound began on September 11th at 9:40 PM local time, 3:40 Eastern time. In addition to dozens of people storming the front entrance to the compound the attack included small arms fire, mortars and RPG rounds. By 6:00 AM local time the attacks on the compound and the annex were essentially over and the survivors were being transported to the airport. During the 8 hour siege no support came from outside of Libya – although a six man security team from Tripoli (including 2 DOD employees) arrived at 1:30 AM to help evacuate personnel and retrieve bodies of those killed, including Ambassador Stevens. There was however never any military support sent. Of note is the fact that 3 hours after the attacks began, the Secretary of Defense ordered anti-terrorism security teams sent from Spain, but five hours later, by which time the attacks were over, they had not even gotten off of the ground. More consequentially however is the fact that prior to the attack on the annex a Special Forces unit in Tripoli was preparing to fly to Benghazi. They too never got off the ground because they were told to stand down, that they couldn’t go because they didn’t have authority. This is in stark contrast to the administration’s claim that no one was ever given a stand down order and that all available resources were used.The third aspect of failure, and the most consequential for the American people as a whole, although certainly not for the families of the victims of the attacks, is the obfuscation and cover-up. Coming just 2 months before the presidential election, Barack Obama made the conscious decision to lie to the American people. Indeed, in an attempt to further his administration’s fiction that terrorism was on the wane and that America was once again loved around the world, Barack Obama tried to pretend as if nothing of consequence had happened as he jetted off to Vegas on a campaign stop. What’s worse, five days later, despite knowledge to the contrary, he trotted Susan Rice out in front of the nation to lie and blame the events in Benghazi on a YouTube video. Later, Hillary Clinton claimed that she had never denied any increased security requests from Libya. Today, eight months later we know that both were lies.
What is particularly disturbing about the events surrounding Benghazi is that they are sequential, i.e. they compound one another. After any one of the three they could have decided to make good, honest decisions. They didn’t and taken as a whole the Benghazi affair is a disaster. We all know that mistakes get made in life and in any organization, government or otherwise. As they say, nobody is perfect and we should not expect our politicians to be so. And we don’t. We do however expect them to be competent and honest. In this case Barack Obama and his administration showed themselves to be not only imperfect, but incompetent, dishonest, and most of all, self-servingly callous with the lives of four Americans who were in Benghazi serving as representatives of the American people.
It’s possible for Americans to believe that in the chaos of Libya in the summer of 2012, that somehow security measures were not quite what they should have been or that the security in place seemed adequate but turned out to fail in a perfect storm of events. After all, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy”.
What’s not possible for Americans to believe however is that in the midst of a raging battle of unknown duration, the President of the United States would refuse to allow Special Forces to attempt to protect and rescue those Americans who were being attacked. From the very beginning the administration understood the gravity of the situation – both on the ground and for their campaign. Rather than jettison the fiction of a terrorism free middle east, the president choose to order reinforcements to stand down. Additionally, later pronouncements that military aid from outside Libya would not have arrived in time are simply absurd. As far as we know the terrorists do not punch clocks for an 8 hour shift of causing mayhem. By definition a terrorist attack timetable is not coordinated with the victims beforehand. In the middle of the battle there was no way of knowing if it would last 5 more hours or 5 more days. In that light the decision to refuse reinforcements shows Barack Obama to be at best an incompetent Commander in Chief and at worst a narcissistic politician for whom his power is the only issue of concern.
Barack Obama has shown himself to be an incompetent president, an ineffectual Commander in Chief and most of all a pernicious politician. One has to wonder where things will go from here. Say what you will about Richard Nixon, when the time came he at least knew when the game was up and had the grace not to drag the nation into a constitutional crisis. If we get to that point with Barack Obama one wonders if grace will emerge as one of the character traits that’s been hidden for the last five years… Don’t count on it.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Benghazi - Five months later the degree of the media's dereliction of duty becomes clear...
Of all of the characteristics one might ascribe to Susan Rice, prescience is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Surprisingly however, five years ago she said something that demonstrated a momentary clarity of vision that is staggering. In a March 2008 interview she said the following: “Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at 3:00 in the morning, and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They’re both not ready to have that 3 AM phone call.” If the events immediately following Benghazi showed Ambassador Rice to be a hapless marionette of the administration, the event itself demonstrated clearly that she was spot on five years ago.
Unfortunately, Benghazi demonstrated something far more sinister than just an administration’s feeble attempt to cover up its incompetence. It demonstrated the role that a pliant media can play in impacting world affairs.
Here we are five months after Benghazi and we’re only now discovering that President Obama was detached during the entire attack. According to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, on September 11, 2012 he attended a pre-scheduled 30-minute session with President Obama at approximately 5:00 PM EST. During that meeting they spent about 20 minutes talking about the surrounded American embassy in Egypt and the emerging situation in Benghazi. Panetta states that the President left operational details “up to us.” After that, for the next seven hours during which the American consulate and annex in Benghazi were under attack and the American Ambassador killed, Panetta heard nothing from the Commander in Chief, nor from anyone at the White House. Nothing. Not a call, not a text, not an email, no smoke signals. Nothing. Our ambassador was dead along with three other Americans and President Obama was not engaged.
We later learned that Washington sent not a single ship, plane, soldier, or marine to help. Between midnight and 2:00 AM EST – between five and seven hours after the attack began – Secretary Panetta issued orders telling two Marine anti-terrorism teams in Rota, Spain to prepare to deploy to Libya. They would not arrive for another 10 hours, long after the attack was over.
Why were there no assets closer to respond more quickly? According to General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because the State Department did not ask for them. But one would expect, given that the American Ambassador in Libya wrote a letter on August 16th stating the consulate in Benghazi could not sustain an attack, that the State Department would either request more security or close the consulate. You’d be wrong. Why? Because Hillary Clinton claims that neither she nor anyone in her office ever saw the Ambassador’s cable.
So, to recap, for at least 7 hours after the first murder of an American Ambassador in 30 years, the Commander in Chief couldn’t seem to find the time to talk with his Secretary of Defense in order to find out what was going on in Benghazi, ask what could be done to save the others under siege, or to order a single boat, plane or man to the scene. But he could find time to spend an hour on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to shore up Jewish voters shaken by the troubled relationship. At the same time, on the anniversary of September 11th, in a city known to be a hotbed for Al Qaeda activity in a country in the midst of revolutionary shockwaves, the State Department was somehow unaware that increased security measures were necessary, despite the US Ambassador’s explicit concerns. Then, once the attack began, despite tens of thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East and Europe, there was no way to get a single resource to Benghazi in less than 15 hours. To top it all off, on September 16th the administration sent the hapless Susan Rice to put forth that absurd claim that the attacks were the result of an anti-Muslim YouTube video rather than a planned terrorist attack timed for the anniversary of 9/11.
Now imagine that instead of Barack Obama sitting in the White House two months before an election, it had been George Bush. Is it even remotely possible that Benghazi would not have become the center of the greatest political firestorm in US history? Is it even possible that some Woodward and Bernstein wannabes over at the New York Times, CNN, TIME or ABC, CBS and NBC would not have spent the next month turning over every single rock and looking behind every door and seeking out every disgruntled State Department or DoD employee to find out those things we are only learning about now? That the President didn’t communicate with his Secretary of Defense for more than 7 hours? That Hillary Clinton had left Ambassador Stevens and the rest of the Americans to fend for themselves on the anniversary of 9/11. That during the entire eight hour attack not a single asset was sent to Libya to help. Not one.
Had the Benghazi debacle occurred two months before an election on the watch of any Republican president the mainstream media reaction would have made Watergate look like a high school cheating scandal by comparison. Fresh from the memory of handing the House to Democrats with their dogged pursuit of the Mark Foley “scandal” a mere six years earlier, the prospect of keeping the White House in Democratic hands would have been too much to ignore.
But of course the White House wasn’t in GOP hands, but rather in the hands of Barack Obama, the progressive Messiah. As such, other than Jake Tapper at ABC News, the story barely warranted mention other than to demonstrate that the Republicans were seeking to make a political mountain out of a tragic but unavoidable molehill. And don’t forget Candy Crowley actually running interference for the president during the debate…
The Constitution specifically protects the press because the Founding Fathers understood that to protect the Republic it was absolutely necessary for an unfettered press to have the freedom to pillory government actors for their misdeeds, otherwise it’s unlikely that government would ever be accountable to the citizenry. Unfortunately however that freedom can’t demand that a sycophantic press actually do their jobs when it’s one of their comrades in the White House. In that case it’s a little like an amendment saying 8 year olds must be allowed to eat spinach. It protects their right to do something they have no desire to do in the first place. Unfortunately for us, in this case the media’s adversity to spinach has ended up dealing a body blow to the country by inflicting another four years of Barack Obama on it. If we’re lucky maybe Popeye will decide to become a journalist during the next election. Even a fictional cartoon character would do a better job than the current crop of administration cheerleaders passing themselves off as journalists.
Unfortunately, Benghazi demonstrated something far more sinister than just an administration’s feeble attempt to cover up its incompetence. It demonstrated the role that a pliant media can play in impacting world affairs.
We later learned that Washington sent not a single ship, plane, soldier, or marine to help. Between midnight and 2:00 AM EST – between five and seven hours after the attack began – Secretary Panetta issued orders telling two Marine anti-terrorism teams in Rota, Spain to prepare to deploy to Libya. They would not arrive for another 10 hours, long after the attack was over.
Why were there no assets closer to respond more quickly? According to General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because the State Department did not ask for them. But one would expect, given that the American Ambassador in Libya wrote a letter on August 16th stating the consulate in Benghazi could not sustain an attack, that the State Department would either request more security or close the consulate. You’d be wrong. Why? Because Hillary Clinton claims that neither she nor anyone in her office ever saw the Ambassador’s cable.
So, to recap, for at least 7 hours after the first murder of an American Ambassador in 30 years, the Commander in Chief couldn’t seem to find the time to talk with his Secretary of Defense in order to find out what was going on in Benghazi, ask what could be done to save the others under siege, or to order a single boat, plane or man to the scene. But he could find time to spend an hour on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to shore up Jewish voters shaken by the troubled relationship. At the same time, on the anniversary of September 11th, in a city known to be a hotbed for Al Qaeda activity in a country in the midst of revolutionary shockwaves, the State Department was somehow unaware that increased security measures were necessary, despite the US Ambassador’s explicit concerns. Then, once the attack began, despite tens of thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East and Europe, there was no way to get a single resource to Benghazi in less than 15 hours. To top it all off, on September 16th the administration sent the hapless Susan Rice to put forth that absurd claim that the attacks were the result of an anti-Muslim YouTube video rather than a planned terrorist attack timed for the anniversary of 9/11.
Had the Benghazi debacle occurred two months before an election on the watch of any Republican president the mainstream media reaction would have made Watergate look like a high school cheating scandal by comparison. Fresh from the memory of handing the House to Democrats with their dogged pursuit of the Mark Foley “scandal” a mere six years earlier, the prospect of keeping the White House in Democratic hands would have been too much to ignore.
But of course the White House wasn’t in GOP hands, but rather in the hands of Barack Obama, the progressive Messiah. As such, other than Jake Tapper at ABC News, the story barely warranted mention other than to demonstrate that the Republicans were seeking to make a political mountain out of a tragic but unavoidable molehill. And don’t forget Candy Crowley actually running interference for the president during the debate…
The Constitution specifically protects the press because the Founding Fathers understood that to protect the Republic it was absolutely necessary for an unfettered press to have the freedom to pillory government actors for their misdeeds, otherwise it’s unlikely that government would ever be accountable to the citizenry. Unfortunately however that freedom can’t demand that a sycophantic press actually do their jobs when it’s one of their comrades in the White House. In that case it’s a little like an amendment saying 8 year olds must be allowed to eat spinach. It protects their right to do something they have no desire to do in the first place. Unfortunately for us, in this case the media’s adversity to spinach has ended up dealing a body blow to the country by inflicting another four years of Barack Obama on it. If we’re lucky maybe Popeye will decide to become a journalist during the next election. Even a fictional cartoon character would do a better job than the current crop of administration cheerleaders passing themselves off as journalists.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)