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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Speaking of Joe “Smarter than you” Biden

    The LA Times catches Joe Biden on the Larry King Show last night (Lord knows none of us would have caught it during our regular programming hours);

    I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

    I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

    Hmm, lemme see what Biden’s record has been on Iraq. First he voted for the use of force against Hussein, then he told us the only way to pacify Iraq was to partition it by religious beliefs, then he told us that war was lost and we should just pull out. Sure, Biden visits Iraq frequently, but you have to wonder if he’d be doing that if we’d adopted any of his hare-brained schemes for Iraq.

    And, oh, by the way, this administration’s “great achievement” in Iraq was brought about by the same policy the President and Vice President BOTH opposed in 2006 and 2007 – the “surge”. So how do they summon the chutpah to claim it as their achievement?

    Perhaps they’d like to claim credit for the pacification of Germany and Japan, too, since we’re drawing down the forces in those two countries, too.

  • Palin frightens Left

    This morning, the Washington Post provides two opposing opinions of Sarah Palin. The first is a news story about a poll, a Washington Post/ABC poll in regards to support for Palin among Americans;

    Although Palin is a tea party favorite, her potential as a presidential hopeful takes a severe hit in the survey. Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of her, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Post-ABC polling.

    There is a growing sense that the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve as president, with more than seven in 10 Americans now saying she is unqualified, up from 60 percent in a November survey. Even among Republicans, a majority now say Palin lacks the qualifications necessary for the White House.

    Palin has lost ground among conservative Republicans, who would be crucial to her hopes if she seeks the party’s presidential nomination in 2012. Forty-five percent of conservatives now consider her as qualified for the presidency, down sharply from 66 percent who said so last fall.

    Qualified? I don’t even know what that means anymore after watching the amateur talent show that currently occupies the West Wing of the White House. That clown car skit that careens in one direction then comically switches direction 180 degrees, dumps off riders and skitters off into the stands.

    Of course, a similar poll in the late 70s might have discovered the same sentiment in regards to Ronald Reagan.

    But it’s difficult to overcome the media’s trumpeting of the two smartest guys to ever work in the White House – Obama and Biden. Obama has never made decision and Biden had never voiced a policy decision that was right. Poll the public on that, Washington Post.

    The other article is an opinion piece by David Broder in which he warns the Democrats that Palin can actually beat them in 2012 if they don’t take her seriously.

    Freed of the responsibilities she carried as governor of Alaska, devoid of any official title but armed with regular gigs on Fox News Channel and more speaking invitations than she can fulfill, Palin is perhaps the most visible Republican in the land.

    More important, she has locked herself firmly in the populist embrace that every skillful outsider candidate from George Wallace to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton has utilized when running against “the political establishment.”

    George Wallace? Hardly. But the most instructive part of the article isn’t in Broder’s piece, it’s in the readers’ comments a sample of which I’ve captured for posterity;

    broderpalin-comments

    I’ll grant that the Washington Post’s readers are hardly representative of mainstream American voters, but it does demonstrate the fear level in regards to Palin among Democrats. If you support Palin, you’re a clown, a pervert and a Nazi. Some of you who were here during the 2008 elections remember that the main reason the leftists didn’t support Palin was because she was “scary” – apparently more scary than Joe Biden who has been consistently wrong on every US policy for the last thirty years. Joe Biden who plagiarized his way through college and still only got mediocre grades…which he lies about these days.

    Yes, Republicans might be moving away from Palin – but they do that. They run away from viable candidates because they listen to Democrats and pick candidates the Democrats tell Republicans they like – which is how we got John McCain on the ticket.

  • Taliban chief confirmed dead

    The Pakistan government has confirmed that Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has indeed been killed despite Taliban claims to the contrary;

    Reports of Mehsud’s death emerged after a spate of U.S. missiles hit his stronghold in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt in mid-January. Mehsud was said to have died of wounds suffered in one of the strikes.

    The Taliban have denied his death, but have backed off an initial promise to prove the 20-something still lives.

    Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik and a senior intelligence official told AP that Mehsud was dead, but neither gave details as to when or how he died. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.

    Of course this doesn’t do much to stem the attacks in Pakistan, but it cuts legacy costs for the Taliban.

    A bomb attack on a tribal police patrol in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 15 people, most of them security personnel.

    According to Pakistani officials, the attack targeted the police convey in the Khyber district near the Afghan border late on Wednesday.

    Sources say three tribal chiefs are among the dead. Twelve others were also wounded in the blast that hit a police vehicle traveling through the area.

    Of course, Joe Biden’s robot zombie ninja operations will have a limited effect on short term outcome of operations in Afghanistan, but it’s always nice when the good guys get one of the bad guys.

  • Taliban plan to use ROE against US in A’stan

    McClatchy and Stars & Stripes reports that civilians caught in the noose the US Army has looped around Marjah in Afghanistan aren’t leaving the area;

    “Commanders in the area are reporting no significant increase in persons moving out of Nad-e Ali district in the last month,” the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. “Despite reports of large numbers of civilians fleeing the area, the facts on the ground do not support these assertions.”

    Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan soldiers are poised to push into the area, with preliminary operations reported to have begun late Tuesday. Afghan police will accompany the soldiers in an effort to establish law and order quickly.

    The presence of a large number of civilians could make the operation much trickier and provide a test of the new coalition military doctrine of protecting the population. A large media contingent from around the world will accompany the troops, recording their progress.

    Well, that’s because the cowardly Taliban plan to hide behind skirts and let the media break up the US attack for them. They should let the Afghan Army lead the attack with a column of photographers right behind them. Let the Afghans live with our new ROE. Or die with the new ROE.

  • Obama: Hey, I’m Bush

    miss-me-yet-bush

    William McGurn in the pages of the Wall Street Journal writes this morning that President Obama is finally admitting that President Bush was right about a lot of stuff related to the war against terrorists. But like Arthur Fonzerelli he can’t quite get the words out that Obama has been wrong;

    “I think that the most important thing for the public to understand,” he told Ms. Couric, “is we’re not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11.” Mr. Obama went on to add that “190 folks”—folks presumably just like the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks—had been tried and convicted in civilian court during Mr. Bush’s tenure.

    Leave aside, for just a moment, the substance. Far more arresting is that Mr. Obama now defends himself by invoking a man he has spent the past year blaming for al Qaeda’s growth. You know—all those Niebuhrian speeches about how America had gone “off course,” “shown arrogance and been dismissive,” and “made decisions based on fear rather than foresight,” thus handing al Qaeda a valuable recruiting tool.

    Funny how that works, huh? All of that talk about “critical thinking” and dissent being patriotic doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell when it’s all put into practice. “Critical thinking” means putting your thumb in your ass and looking pleased with yourself.

    By the way, that DeMotivator at the top of this post is mysteriously sitting on a billboard in Minnesota.

  • Stop-Loss Rapper deploys to Iraq

    Regular readers remember Marc Hall, the “Stop-Loss rapper” and new IVAW member, who complained in his rap song that he was scheduled to deploy to Iraq after his date for leaving the Army. The Army charges that Hall communicated a threat in the song by referring to all of his leadership as targets that would hit the floor when he locked and loaded a thirty round magazine on them. Of course, he sent the CD to the Pentagon in the weeks following Major Nidal Hasan’s attack on scores of soldiers at Fort Hood.

    It seems the Army is preparing to deploy Hall to Iraq and the Leftists are angry.

    Today, Fort Stewart, Georgia officials confirmed that the Army will attempt to separate Spc Marc A Hall from both his civilian legal team and his established military defender Capt. Anthony Schiavetti by sending him to Iraq “within a few days” to face court martial.

    The Army declared that, “The jurisdiction transfer ensures a full and fair trial for both Spc. Hall and the United States.” Nothing could be farther from the truth, at least for Spc. Hall.

    “It is our belief that the Army would violate its own regulations by deploying Marc and it would certainly violate his right to due process by making it far more difficult to get witnesses. It appears the Army doesn’t believe it can get a conviction in a fair and public trial. We will do whatever we can to insure he remain in the United States,” explains attorney David Gespass of Birmingham, Alabama.

    Of course, the Army can send his military lawyer to Iraq with Hall, so they’re really not separating him from his defense team. But the really hilarious part is Veterans Today with their penchant for hyperbole, asks “what is happening to our military justice system;

    gitmo-for-hall

    Yes, we’re going to start throwing our troops in Guantanamo, Hanafin, you mega drama queen. Are you guys still taking hallucinogens after all these years. I’d love to hear your theories about the JFK assassination some time.

    My guess is that most of the witnesses on both sides in the Hall case are deployed to Iraq and it makes more sense to move him there than to send an entire unit back from the war. But I have an email in to his commander to get the real skinny on the reason. Maybe they’re going to tie him to the grill of an MRAP on a clearing operation. I’ll check with Gordon Duff on that.

  • Obama the healer

    I just found this article from AP;

    return-to-civility

    This from the guy who told America “I won” as defense for doing whatever he pleased with the economy. The guy who spent all last week disparaging Republicans as the party of “no”. The guy who blames on corporate lobbyists the Tea Party movement.

    The guy whose political advisor threatens the opposition;

    Axelrod accused the GOP of “rooting for failure.”

    “They made a decision they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed — that the country failed,” he said.

    Until now, he suggested, Obama has been too gentle. “They didn’t pay enough of a price for what was a determined strategy not to work with us,” he said.

    Now, “they either work with us or they have to pay the price for working against us.”

    Operator Dan wrote last night that Obama blames Republicans for all of his problems.

    Yeah, so how’s all of the arrogance working out for you guys?

  • First good advice from Obama Administration retracted

    So someone in the Obama Administration finally gave the American people good advice about something and then he backed away from it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, when asked by the House Appropriation Committee what advice he’d give Americans in regards to the Toyota recall, Fox News records;

    “My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it,” LaHood said.

    Afterwards he told reporters that wasn’t what he meant to say.

    “What I said in there was obviously a misstatement,” LaHood said outside of the hearing room. “My advice is if you have one of these vehicles, if you are in doubt, take it to the dealership today.”

    DOT spokesman Bill Adams said in an email, “The DOT is advising owners of recalled vehicles to contact their local dealerships to arrange for fixes as soon as possible.”

    The Japanese auto maker said Monday it has the fix for the problem and would begin shipping the new parts to auto dealers.

    A Toyota representative couldn’t immediately comment on LaHood’s statement.

    Instead, they want you to drive around in a potential death trap until it kills you.

    Me? I’ve never owned a rice burner, but if Toyota had done that to me, knew about the problem since 1997 without telling anyone, I’d drive it right up my dealer’s ass.

    But this is just the latest recall – Toyota’s recalls exceed those of the Big Three American Automakers combined.

    Yeah, yeah, I know – your Toyota has 8 billion miles on it and you’ve never put a drop of gas in it. It’s those last three feet that’ll kill you. I was raised by WWII vets and we still don’t trust those sneaky Japs.