This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: 2012 election

  • Criticism for OPSEC video

    SO, it had to begin; folks are beginning to come out to criticize the people at OPSEC who released a video last week complaining that the Obama Administration is releasing secrets for political purposes and that Obama is taking personal credit for things that the military and intelligence community has done over the last decade.

    General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joins the chorus;

    “If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond of trust we have with the American people,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in an interview with Fox News while flying back from a trip to Afghanistan and Iraq.

    “Is their criticism valid? I won’t comment on that,” Dempsey said onboard a C17 military aircraft en route back from the Middle East. “Is it useful? No, it’s not useful. It’s not useful to me.”

    The Associated Press reports the one-way conversation from Admiral McRaven, President Obama and John Kerry;

    “Make no mistake about it, it was the president of the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that made the hard decisions,” the leader of the raid, Adm. Bill McRaven, said at this summer’s Aspen Security Forum.

    “I don’t take these folks too seriously,” President Barack Obama told the newspaper The Virginian-Pilot on Monday. “One of their members is a birther who denies I was born here, despite evidence to the contrary.” Special Ops OPSEC member ret. Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who appears in the group’s film, has publicly questioned Obama’s birth in Hawaii.

    Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., compared the group’s campaign to the “Swift Boat” attacks that questioned his service during the Vietnam War. Though later discredited, the claims were partially blamed for unseating his 2004 presidential campaign.

    John Kerry? Really? The guy who all but wore his uniform every day of the 2004 Presidential Campaign?

    I don’t see anyone criticizing Jon Soltz who uses his military service like a shield from criticism. He runs VoteVets which is supposed to advance the political careers of veterans, but in the last election, they funded Harry Reid’s campaign. Harry Reid who fit their own definition of a draft dodger as they apply the definition to Republicans.

    Did anyone criticize Paul Rieckhoff when he attacked the Bush Administration while he was still a captain in the Reserves when he presented the Democrat’s opposition to a Bush radio address?

    And what about in New Hampshire the other day when Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced the President as the guy who led the raid that got Obama? I didn’t hear the President refute that and humbly give credit where it was due.

    And, oh, yeah, read the President’s comment above again – and you wonder why I’ve been saying that birthers aren’t helpful Obama disparaged the whole group because they had one birther among them. Never mind that there are Democrats and people who voted for Obama in OPSEC, their good intentions are cast aside because of one birther.

    “They have a good point. I wish there was better OPSEC (operational security), and fewer leaks,” said retired Navy SEAL Capt. Rick Woolard, who commanded several SEAL units. “But I would prefer that SEALs and other special operators would sit down and shut the hell up.”

    Yeah, if they’d shut up on both sides of the issue, your criticism would be valid, Captain.

    More from Mr. Hanson.

  • Transparency? Here’s some Real Transparency

    Good grief! How stupid does the Obama campaign think Americans are? How much contempt do those Chicago elitists have for those of us out here clinging to our guns, our religion and because of them and their incompetent leader, our livelihoods? I’m referring, of course, to this latest bit of preposterousness emanating from the White House spinmeisters: the turnout crowds at Obama campaign events are intentionally small because we’re deliberately controlling access to maintain an atmosphere of intimacy between the great one and our true Kool-Aid drinkers.

    Excuse me, but Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

    Sure you are, Axelrod. As any successful political campaign consultant will tell you, it’s really smart to keep the crowds small and make that really close, confidential connection. Sure it is, especially at fundraisers, hmm?. That’s a real formula for winning, know what I mean? Who wants the tens of thousands of enthusiastically cheering voters who are turning out at the Romney/Ryan events? That’s just so gauche and totally unbecoming, not to mention a testimony to the coarseness and unsophistication of those spiritual, gun-loving knuckle-draggers who unfortunately occupy such a large geographical portion of America. Bunch of damn Tea Party fools, don’t you agree Mr. Plouffe? When you and Axelrod write your book chronicling the disastrous and failed campaign you concocted in 2012, perhaps the chapter on limiting the crowds at Obama events should be titled:

    Crowds? We don’t need no stinking crowds!

    Truth is folks, this transparently laughable idiocy isn’t aimed at the kinds of Americans who read American Thinker; no, it’s hard targeted on those who are hopelessly unaware and eternally naive, which means most of California, New York and Michigan and all of Massachusetts and Illinois. Unaware and naive are the nicest possible excuses you can make for people willing to believe that a messianic politician really doesn’t want to be greeted at every stop by massive, adoring, idol-worshiping crowds like he was the last time around.

    And these are the fools who look down their elitist noses at the rest of America…

  • Jon Soltz swiftboats OPSEC

    I really dislike Jon Soltz of VoteVets and if you don’t dislike him, you won’t not dislike him after watching this video from MSNBC in which he faces off with Navy Seal, Gabriel Gomez, from the OPSEC folks. Gomez actually gives credit to President Obama for making the decision to go after bin Laden at about 2:45 into the video.

    Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    It took 10 seconds into Soltz’ diatribe to mention that he was in Iraq. After Gomez tries to be gracious and says that VoteVets is non-partisan (they are not, VV has never supported a Republican for any political office in their six year history), Soltz just plows ahead and without saying why, he calls the whole video a lie. He calls Gomez a liar without explaining what he thinks Gomez is lying about.

    The VoteVets Facebook page says about the video; “Swiftboating of Obama Smacked Down by VoteVets.org Chairman Jon Soltz on Hardball on MSNBC.” Yeah, it wasn’t smacked down, Gomez tried to be polite while Soltz played the bully and leaned on the grade school playground tactic of calling Gomez names. Soltz might not have so brave if he’d been in the same room as Gomez, though.

    Trolling through the Facebook page, you can see countless examples of whoever is running that POS page (disksmith went to Veterans’ Affairs with the rest of the VV crew, so I know it’s not him) of VV taking cheap shots at veterans who were in the video. They accuse Scott Taylor of releasing SEAL secrets on a Discovery Channel program “The Secrets of SEAL Team Six” because the Discovery Channel is the best place to release classified information, I suppose.

    They also link to a Business Insider article that claims that another member of OPSEC, Fred Rustmann, had defended Scooter Libby’s outing of Valerie Plame on *gasp* Fox News’ Hannity Show, although Scooter Libby had nothing to do with outing Plame, who was out years before she was outed, anyway. I mean, the cover of Vanity Fair is a strange place to be announcing you’re a CIA agent if you’re trying to be covert, isn’t it?

    Anyway, so much for VoteVets’ non-partisan support of issues that matter to veterans.

  • OK, you can rest easy now

    All of you folks still in Afghanistan who might have been worried that you’d be a target of “insider” attacks can breathe easy now, the president is on the job, finally. The Associated Press reports that he told the media today; “we have got to make sure we are on top of this”.

    I don’t know how he figures he can do more…I mean, he let them turn their desks so the troops could face the door. How much can one man do? Oh, and the “Guardian Angel Program” where one person the room gets to be armed and watches the Afghans who come in the room. Don’t forget the fact that he let them put bullets in their weapons. Hasn’t he done enough already?

    The article goes on to say that “the military needs to beef up its vetting process for Afghan troops”. yeah, see, it’s their own fault they’re getting shot to shit – the Americans aren’t vetting the Afghans well enough. Not that the Afghans aren’t vetting their troops well enough…it’s the military who isn’t doing their job. Because all they have to do ask the prospective recruits if they plan on shooting up some Americans and they’ll always answer truthfully.

    Meanwhile Obama “plans to speak to Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well”. That’ll help loads. And, really, hasn’t he already talked to Karzai about this? Why does he think that talking to Karzai will help now? Didn’t Leon Panetta have a conversation with Karzai this weekend, right before this last attack on a US soldier?

    Maybe he’s worried because the LA Times did an article today entitled “Afghanistan ‘insider’ attacks pose threat to West’s exit strategy“. Yeah, when your only strategy is withdrawal and you can’t do that right, and the LA Times notices, something’s vastly wrong.

    But don’t worry, you folks who have your asses on the line over there, I’m sure the president is going to focus on this problem and get to a solution like he’s done to so many problems he’s faced. Like fixing the economy and closing Guantanamo, a solution is right around the corner.

  • I can’t wait for the movie

    Sparky sent us this video. It proves that the OPSEC folks are on the right track.

    Introducing President Obama at a campaign event in New Hampshire, Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen said that the president “led the mission that brought Osama bin Laden to justice”:

    And the bobbleheads in the audience just clapped and cheered on cue.

    It looks and sounds to me like the Democrats are swiftboating the SEALs who accomplished what few in this country could have done.

  • Famous Democrat War Hero Attacks Fellow Warriors…Again

    John Kerry is up to his old tricks, doing what he’s done all his sorry, sleazy Democrat life, attempting to discredit American warriors. This time around, John Fraud Kerry is smearing our special operations forces on behalf of probably the only man alive who is a more deplorable commander-in-chief than Kerry himself would have been. Kerry missed that opportunity because of the courage of the men he served with in Vietnam, officers and enlisted, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder and denounced him as unfit to command. They so thoroughly torpedoed the political scow Kerry was trying to sail up the Potomac that they have entered the political lexicon in the form of the term swiftboating, a pejorative to the left and a term describing distinctly courageous and honorable behavior to those on the right.

    The lapdog media always claimed that Kerry was smeared because the SBV campaign supposedly spread vicious lies about his service. Hiding behind the media, Kerry swore he would release his complete military records, proving the Swiftees to be liars and then would sue them for libel, slander, defamation etc, etc. Funny thing about those records and that suing business: he never did sign the Form 180 to release his records nor did he sue the Swift Boat Veterans, did he? And why do you suppose that is? The man was denied the highest political position in the world, supposedly by defamatory lies, and yet he neither provided proof of those lies nor did he sue the miscreants who so horribly damaged his political career and all the future enrichments that promised. Those are quite fertile grounds for a major damages suit. But, ask any lawyer you know why Kerry didn’t sue and you’ll find out that the most obvious reason is that a rock-solid defense against libel, slander and defamation is purely and simply the TRUTH.
    Kerry dropped all the phony protestations and promises of lawsuits and slunk back into the Democrats’ crowded-to-overflowing ethical swamp as soon as the media lost interest. For a man who had been denied so much greatness because of these supposed liars, it was an extremely, tuck-tailed, timid exit. How many Americans, having been so grievously injured by such cruel and evil liars, would have sued to redress their damages? I’ll tell you how many: None, nada, zero, zip; just as soon as they consulted with a lawyer and he explained the unkind truth about the TRUTH and the legal protections it affords those defendants who happen to be telling that truth. Think for a moment of the wealth, fame and acclaim that would accrue to any attorney who took Kerry’s case and prevailed against those evil Swiftees. The media would have had a slobbering wonderful time demonizing those traitorous sailors in very public virtual hangings and would have rejoiced orgasmically at every guilty verdict.

    But none of that happened did it? No prominent lawyer stepped up to defend John Kerry’s besmirched honor and the media went back to normal whimpering. Reason for that, folks: the TRUTH.

    There is an additional corollary to Kerry’s quick folding of the litigational tent: The 2004 campaign generated new interest in an old claim that Kerry had been less than honorably discharged for his near-traitorous treating with the North Vietnamese enemy in Paris. There were claims during the campaign that Jimmy Carter, as a part of his amnesty for Vietnam era draft dodgers, had Kerry’s discharge status converted to honorable. That was never more than speculation but it could have been a very embarrassing revelation were it to be proved true in any legal discovery associated with any Kerry-instituted lawsuits. but, again, we’re talking about the TRUTH, aren’t we?

    So we have John Kerry reporting for duty again, stepping forward, with his military armor and credentials even more tarnished than when he reported in 2004. Kerry should think twice before he gets too involved in this current battle between Obama and the military. This time the dissident warriors aren’t all old men as were the Swiftees. Kerry and Obama are taking on the special operations community, both active and past service, a bunch of really tough guys who do not take it lightly when their professional reputations are trashed to promote the political reputations of Democrats who never served. There is probably no more formidable community in the world nor is there a military entity more worthy of the admiration of the American people. These people truly are the tip of America’s military spear. It is doubtful that a limited-experienced, foolish Democrat politician, like Barack Obama, has any idea of just how sharp the tip of that spear can be, until it pierces his political jugular and bleeds him out…as John Kerry should have learned by now.

    Who’s up next to attack these warriors on Obama’s behalf, Senator Blumenthal?

    Postscript:
    Truth be told, ol’ Poetrooper owes his very existence as a writer to the Swift Boat Veterans. I hadn’t written anything but business reports in the thirty years since I’d left college until John Kerry raised his big ugly head in the 2004 campaign. I was one of those Vietnam vets who despised Kerry for his lies about us, but figured as long as the morons in Massachusetts wanted him to represent them, that was their right. But when it suddenly became clear there were enough morons in this country to make this phony bastard the CinC, I realized I had to do something.

    I heard about the SBV guys shortly before their first press conference and knew that the media would either ignore or crucify these guys, which of course turned out to be right on both counts. I began writing on their behalf and their webmaster and media guy, Scott Swett, welcomed me and posted my pieces. I am very proud that Scott included snippets of my poems in his post election book, To Set the Record Straight, an accounting of “How Swift Boat Veterans, POW’s and the New Media Defeated John Kerry.”

    I am equally proud of the fact that Wey Symmes, treasurer for the Swift Boat Veterans organization, included my post-election, laudatory poem to those brave warriors, The Last Battle of Vietnam, in his own book, This is Latch, about Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, leader of the group, both in Vietnam and the 2004 campaign. Here’s that poem:
    (more…)

  • Swiftboating poor Obama

    They still don’t know what the term, “swiftboating” means;

    I guess the attacks on Obama for pretending to be a ‘war president” from the various special operations troops who’ve been sticking up for the troops who are actually fighting the wars are starting to sting, because the Obama campaign has been attacking those veterans on this new webpage.

    It’s funny because their charges against these guys range from “worked on the McCain campaign” to making appearances on Fox News. They go after our friend, Larry Bailey for organizing the “Vietnam Veterans For Truth” – my first conservative rally and precursor to Gathering of Eagles.

    So, there’s really nothing surprising about the revelations on this web page. Veterans are generally conservative, and conservatives generally supported George W Bush over John Kerry or Al Gore. Duh. The webpage concludes;

    It is not surprising that the attacks these groups are launching lack any credibility. The President is committed to protecting our troops and our country’s security. The only way to mislead Americans about his record on national security is to resort to dishonest and overtly political smear campaigns that do a disservice to Americans who deserve to know the facts about the President’s record.

    The President’s record on national security and support for the troops is indeed glaring. When he took his political advisers’ advice for the Afghanistan surge instead of his generals, we know what he was thinking, and it wasn’t about national security. Supporting the troops? Really? Was that he wanted service-connected veterans to buy their own insurance? Is that why his Homeland Security Department warned the nation to watch out for crazy vets? Is that why he’s raising the cost of Tricare for veterans as a means to lower everyone else’s health care costs?

    But what I think is strange, they attack veterans who campaign against Obama for not disclosing their conservative links, but I don’t see anyone except TAH disclosing IAVA’s liberal links. In fact, we were attacked in 2008 for exposing Phil Carter, Obama campaign veteran advisor, as a founding member of IAVA. And we were attacked for connecting IAVA to Paul Rieckhoff’s first anti-conservative venture OpTruth (which was nothing more than IVAW in suits).

    And don’t get me started on VoteVets.

    So I don’t think that it’s surprising that conservatives oppose Obama, because, from what I’ve heard, liberals oppose Romney.

    Thanks to Daniel for the link to the Obama page.

  • The Gold Standard of Racism

    Last night I watched a Sean Hannity interview with Congressman Allen West which elicited a gleaming nugget of liberal Democrat racism of which I was unaware. Most of TAH’s readers are probably familiar with the viciously racist political ad issued by a Democrat PAC which showed Congressman West beating up on old ladies, old white ladies, in fact, just to get their racist message across. But what many of you probably missed, as did I, in my disinterested viewing of the ad, was one of its most snidely racist stereotypes: the Allen West depicted is sporting a flashing gold tooth, a complete fabrication, obviously intended to reinforce stereotypes of black thugs who mug old white ladies.

    As West said and visually demonstrated as well to Hannity, he has no gold teeth.

    What a thoroughly despicable, racist, cheap shot by the folks who are so quick to call us conservatives racists and condemn us for stereotyping blacks. When are blacks going to wake up and realize the true contempt which their liberal Democrat masters have for them?

    Crossposted at American Thinker