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

Category: 2012 election

  • Yes, there’s still a war going on


    (Photo courtesy of SFC Holland)

    The Washington Post has an article from Rajiv Chandrasekaran entitled “Remember the war in Afghanistan? Obama and Romney don’t seem to” about how both major candidates in the presidential campaign are basically ignoring the continuing war in Afghanistan. I kind of agree with him.

    Chandrasekaran quotes Romney in his most scathing attack on the Obama Administration’s failed policy in Afghanistan;

    Romney’s principal line of attack is that the president rejected a recommendation from the former top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to wait until the end of this year to bring home all the surge troops. Instead, Obama ordered them out of Afghanistan by the end of September.

    “I have been critical of the president’s decision to withdraw the surge troops during the fighting season, against the advice of the commanders on the ground,” Romney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars last month. “President Obama would have you believe that anyone who disagrees with his decisions is arguing for endless war. But the route to more war — and to potential attacks here at home — is a politically timed retreat.”

    While Obama is more low key about the war strategy;

    In remarks to supporters and donors, he often cites the war, but usually in just one sentence that emphasizes how he is seeking to scale back U.S. involvement. (His two favored versions of that sentence: “We’re transitioning out of Afghanistan” and “We’re winding down the war in Afghanistan.”)

    He rarely tries to make the case that his troop surge succeeded, that the more than 50,000 troops he sent over in 2009 and 2010 have pummeled the Taliban and increased the Afghan government’s chances of holding onto large swaths of the country.

    While Chandrasekaran is correct that the surge worked, he avoids the facts that make Obama gun shy about mentioning the war. Yes, his surge worked, but not any large scale that would have influenced a successful conclusion of the war. It was merely a stopgap measure to appear as if he was a strong leader who could send troops to war.

    Obama doesn’t want to remind his liberal base that he more than doubled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. His decision in late 2009to send 30,000 more military personnel — made over the objections of Vice President Biden and several of his most senior White House advisers — was deeply unpopular with Democrats, even though he pledged to begin reducing forces in 2011.

    His advisers even admit that they advised against pulling the trigger on bin Laden, his only useful and lasting decision. Yes, he’s responsible for his adviser’s advice…he hired them for their supposed expertise, and obviously they give him bad advice.

    Much noise has been made about both candidates in regard to the number of veterans they attract to their side. As this last war proved, veterans are as interested in the application of military force as the soldiers who are sent to fight the wars. If either candidate wants veterans’ votes, they have to prove to us that they think they deserve it and make pronouncements about how they will apply the military to their goals during their upcoming term.

    Yes, I understand that the economy is big issue, however the economy depends on the president’s willingness to protect our economic interests. Since being the commander-in-chief is the only job that the president can do mostly without Congress, the candidates need to talk about the war and convince veterans that he deserves our vote.

  • We Have It from Excellent but Anonymous Sources…

    An excellent confidential source, whom we refuse to disclose for obvious reasons, has revealed that during the last congressional recess, Harry Reid was observed entering a rural Nevada brothel with a small flock of very attractive, heavily made-up, Rhode Island Red hens, all of whom were provocatively attired in teeny French garter belts and matching shelf bras and brandishing little whips which they playfully kept stroking across Harry’s tight derrière while clucking suggestively.

    We also have it on very good authority that Harry’s often media-cited boxing career was brought to an early end by the man’s simple inability to land a meaningful punch. Supposedly, according to those who may have been present at the time, all being excellent sources, of course, Harry had a propensity for whiffing his blows. It is rumored, by those worthy sources, of course, that he simply lacked the inherent talent to lay a glove on a figure of his own stature, perhaps reinforcing that rumor from back within the Beltway, where, another excellent source, who shall by all means remain equally undisclosed, tells us he watched astounded as Reid entered a nondescript room at the rather sleazy Jaipur Palace on South Highway 1 in Alexandria, accompanied by a swarm of agitated dwarfs, some of indeterminate orientation, who were loudly humming “Here we go again,” while air-boxing merrily about them in the parking lot.

    We do have our standards and it is because of that we absolutely refuse to relate the incident reported to us by an excellent source that Harry was long ago ejected and banned from the tony but now defunct Washington dining hotspot, Rive Gaucherie, for his seemingly endless propensity for using the establishment steak knives to carve holes in the wooden panels separating stalls in the men’s room. We simply refuse to perpetuate that rumor even though it did come to us through an excellent source who corroborated his account by pointing out to us that Harry more than once sported a circular bruise around one eye the exact dimensions of a perhaps angrily-jammed, cardboard toilet paper tube.

    OK, OK, so we let that one slip, but we’re serious about not repeating the long-whispered story about Harry and those who seem to flock to him.

    Ewe know what I mean?

  • Veterans for Obama

    JP sends us this picture from Obama For America in which “Jocelyn” who says she’s a veteran and she’s voting for Obama because he keeps his promises.

    The picture sits atop this caption

    Jocelyn knows President Barack Obama is looking out for veterans and their families—join Veterans for Obama today.

    As JP said, I thought there was still a war going on and some of our troops are still in it, but I guess because Jocelyn isn’t there, it doesn’t matter.

    Obama also promised that he was going fight the Taliban with all of the resources available to the most powerful president in the world, but he only half-assed staffed the surge, greatly undermanned in the estimation of his generals and the CIA.

    Obama also promised to close Guantanamo, how’s that working out, Jocelyn? He promised veterans that he wouldn’t balance the national budget on the backs of veterans while his Secretary of Defense was planning to do just that. The president and his Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs promised to straighten out the DVA, but the list of veterans waiting for disability has doubled. Can we talk about how the VA couldn’t pay veterans’ education benefits that Obama voted for as a Senator in a timely manner? How about how the first thing Obama tried to do to veterans was to make us buy health insurance to pay for our service-connected injuries. And who can forget that the Obama Homeland Security Department labeled veterans as a dangerous threat to our national security.

    But, yeah, he’s man of Bush’s word to withdraw from Iraq on time – but only because he couldn’t send competent people to negotiate with Iraqis to allow us to stay. And Iraq is being torn apart by violence in our wake undoing everything the troops did during the 2006 surge. So, yeah, vote for him again, Jocelyn, because you don’t have to deploy to Iraq, if you ever did.

  • I don’t think “gutsy” means what you think it means

    Yeah, I’m going to pile on this one, too. For some reason, my work computer tells me that The Daily Caller is an attack website, so I have to rely on our buddy, McQ at Blackfive for the details on the story that Caller is reporting, that being; Obama cancelled the Osama bin Laden mission three times on the advice of f’n Valerie Jarret, his assistant for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs – a freaking PAO jock.

    Most of our past presidents have relied on their military advisers for, you know, military advice. But not this guy. He has to poll the strap hangers and pencil sharpeners first. After all, they know more about military matters than the folks responsible for pulling triggers and stuff. As Bruce said;

    Sorry, despite the fact that I’m not at all a fan of this President, I’m also not much for anonymous single sources. However, this would certainly further damage the already widely panned “ “gutsiest calls of any president in recent history” claim even more. And, who knows, if true, there may very well have been legitimate reasons for the cancellations. The inclusion of Valarie Jarrett in the decision cycle, however, would lead me to believe otherwise.

    Yeah, if the whole story is true, a everyone thinks it is, it kinda puts a damper on that whole “gutsiest call” thing we heard Joe Biden yanking his crank about a few months back. And to borrow from Mr. Hanson;

    The truly sad thing is that this is the one accomplishment he thinks makes him worthy of another four years of destruction.

    Like I said before, if I was running for president this year, I’d go on vacation until November, because nothing can hurt the current administration more than what they’re doing to themselves.

  • How to be a media dip$#it

    You may have seen the latest breathless reporting about how some guy named Romney said something to the effect that the UK and the US understand each other because of our shared Anglo-Saxon heritage. It set off a media frenzy (what doesn’t these days, actually?) as all of the false outrage built up over the last few days in the wake of the Aurora murders exploded.

    First of all, we do share an Anglo-Saxon heritage with England. So what’s the big whoop? But, apparently, like everything else, it’s racist to say that outloud. Says the Obama camp;

    The Obama campaign swiftly responded, calling the anonymous attacks “stunningly offensive” and even the reporter who sat down with the Romney advisers warned the “remarks may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity.”

    And what’s more, according to Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, the quote was made up by the UK’s Telegraph and the tip had been sent to them by Team Obama in the first place;

    But that doesn’t matter. The pack journalists begin tweeting it out. The cable news people begin to chatter about it. The Romney team puts out a statement: “It’s not true. If anyone said that, they weren’t reflecting the views of Governor Romney or anyone inside the campaign.”

    Some mainstream reporters confess to the Romney campaign that their editors tell them they have to write on it. (Have to? What if it’s not true?) Well, if one of them writes on it, others will follow.

    And how did the Telegraph quote magically get to so many reporters? The Obama team sent it to them. Nothing wrong with that, if the press would be honest about the origin of the story.

    So, I’m guessing that the Romney crowd, which denies that the phrase was ever uttered by Romney, nor one of his aides, is feeling the heat from Chicago.

    Look at me writing about the campaign in the middle of the work day.

  • When will they stop being the “Bush tax cuts”?

    The president has recently called for extending the “Bush Tax Cuts” for lower income Americans – you know, when President Bush cut the Clinton tax hikes back and probably saved the post-9-11 economy. The last of the cuts was more than nine years ago. So, I’m wondering when the president and the media are going to call them the “impending Obama tax hikes” and move past the “Bush tax cuts” phrase. From CNN:

    President Barack Obama revitalized his push for holding down middle-class tax rates Monday, calling on Congress to pass a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for people earning less than $250,000 a year.

    In a White House statement delivered while people described as working Americans stood behind him, Obama said his proposal would provide the certainty of no tax increase next year for 98% of Americans.

    Noting that Republicans seek to maintain all of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, Obama said both sides therefore agree on extending the lower rates for middle-class families.

    Of course, the one-year extension is nothing more than a campaign ploy, and not preventing the Obama tax hikes on wealthier Americans is just class warfare at it’s essence. We’re supposed to hate on Republicans because they’ll be holding up stopping the imposition of the Obama Tax Hikes on us because of their support for continued lower tax benefits for Americans making over $250k.

    But we didn’t call Bush rollback of the tax burden imposed on us by the previous administration the “Clinton Tax Hikes” so why are we still calling them the “Bush Tax Cuts”? Of course, the answer is that the media and the Democrats for so long told us that they were tax cuts for the rich, even though the current debate proves that lie is just that, since we’re all looking at higher taxes without the benevolence of this president and the Congress.

    A one-year extension won’t help the economy in the long term, though. They need to stop holding the economy and voters hostage and make current tax rates permanent.

  • Feats of Clay…

    Think about it for a moment: If that black half of Obama’s brain is as brilliant as all his impassioned people-of-color and liberal, white devotees credit him with, then the other half must be the most lacking white intellect ever to occupy the Oval Office. Seriously, folks, we’ve been told for years now that this supposedly all-knowing, Athena-wise character, Obama, who seems to have sprung like that goddess, full-blown from some unknown head of Whoziss, is the brightest light in every room, if not every country in the world. Yet, through the past three-plus years, we mere mortals have witnessed national and global events that lead us to believe this bright, shining god has some really big feats of clay. And perhaps an intellect of the same sticky substance.

    Far from the ObaMoses he presented himself as being to the world, a tan, man-god who could, among other feats, command the seas to do his bidding, our pinto-gened president, has revealed himself to be much more like the pale, foiled and wet-footed King Canute than the desert-darkened biblical savior of god’s chosen people. Yeah, his Canutian feats are all wet now and they appear to be swelling painfully and perhaps fatefully as this Janus-like, dubious deity finds it increasingly difficult to show first one face and then another, even to the shrinking crowds of ambrosia drinkers (that’s Kool-Aid for those of you out there in Rio Linda) who seem to be awakening. They, somewhat later than the rest of us, are becoming aware of the growing odor of this guy’s malodorous feats when we catch him with his political sneakers off.

    Yes, even among some of the fervent disciples, there is a growing realization that a sun-bright brilliant, black cerebral hemisphere combined with a truly dim-bulb white hemisphere (and yes, as whites, surely we all must accept the collective blame for that failure in spite of his being granted every affirmative action, educational advantage our nation has to offer) is going to yield a really mediocre result in governance and leadership, somewhere at the level of say, um, maybe an admirably and slightly above-grade performance community organizer, hmm? Perhaps even a mediocre, present-voting, Democrat state senator.

    But that could only be in Illinois or California, of course.
    In 2012, Publicus Americanus, is awakening to its own 2008 folly of believing that a god had returned to earth to save us from our myriad follies. Almost four years into the political continuum, they have had ample opportunity to learn one of the fundamental lessons of the ancients:
    Men who would be gods all too often trod across our world with feats of clay.

  • Walsh: Duckworth not a “true hero” (Updated)

    Several of you sent this link to us and, truthfully, I was hoping I could avoid writing about it. Not because it’s a (R) vs (D) issue, and it makes the (R) look bad, but because I really don’t like Tammy Duckworth, the veteran double-amputee running for the Congess in Illinois. Aside from the fact that folks from Illinois have told me that she was an incompetent boob while she was Director of Illinois’ Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but also because she was the VoteVets employment advocate when she went to be the Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs in DC. And then, while she was at the DVA, she “selflessly” and publicly volunteered to go back to school while she was getting a full-time paycheck in order to straighten out the mess she and Shinseki had created with Veterans’ Education Benefits. And, oh, yeah, she doesn’t know how her own agency worked.

    So, now that I’ve established clearly why I dislike Tammy Duckworth greatly, apparently, her opponent in Illinois, Joe Walsh made a very stupid statement according to the Chicago Tribune;

    Walsh began his criticism of Duckworth on Sunday by noting that heroes such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Vietnam prisoner of war, were uncomfortable talking about their service.

    He said political advisers for McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, “day after day had to take him and almost throw him against a wall and hit him against the head and say, ‘Senator, you have to let people know you served!’”

    “That’s what’s so noble about our heroes,” Walsh said. “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.”

    So, the implication here is that she’s not a “true hero”. Walsh, it should be noted, has no military service. While he may be correct, it was a very stupid thing to say out loud. If you look at Duckworth’s bio at her campaign website, you’ll see what he means. Like I said, folks from Illinois tell me that almost all of her “accomplishments” at the IL DVA were things other people accomplished, but she took the credit. So, naturally, she leans heavily on the fact that she was in the military and wounded, because she can’t speak beyond platitudes of veterans’ issues.

    But none of Duckworth’s utter incompetence justifies Walsh’s implication that she doesn’t deserve credit for being shot down and losing her legs in combat. Apparently, Duckworth’s minions at VoteVets, hoping for another employment opportunity, are circulating another of their online petitions against Walsh. But I don’t pay attention to them anymore since they quit writing at VetVoice and turned amateur playing on Facebook these days. But Soltz writes that Walsh “swiftboats” Duckworth on Daily Kos. I don’t think he knows that “swiftboat” means telling the truth about a candidate’s military service.

    You may have noticed that I can’t really bring myself to support Duckworth on this, but at least now you know the reasons.

    ADDED: On a second thought, not that we need more proof that Soltz and VoteVets are hypocrites, but here’s some thoughts that Soltz had when Wesley Clark criticized John McCain‘s service;


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