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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • The perception of Obama comes back to reality

    JammieWearingFool reads the New York Times so we don’t have to, and the NYT tells us that there’s a perception out there that President Obama is a wimp on National Security. Really? I hadn’t noticed.

    It’s not just coming from Republicans (for example, Dick Cheney’s accusation that Mr. Obama is trying to pretend that the country isn’t at war). Now barbs are coming from the center too. This week’s Foreign Policy magazine has a provocative cover: Mr. Obama next to Jimmy Carter with — gasp — an “equals” sign in the middle. New York Times/CBS polling shows that public approval of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy dropped 9 points to 50 percent between last April and November. Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the Daily Beast blog two weeks ago that Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries. “He puts far too much store on being the smartest guy in the room,” Mr. Gelb wrote. “He’d do well to remember that Jimmy Carter also rang all the I.Q. bells.”

    The Washington Post reports that Obama is failing in the perception of his domestic agenda as well;

    In winning the White House, Barack Obama’s team earned a reputation for skill and discipline in dominating the communications wars with opponents. In office, virtually the same team has struggled, spending much of the past year defending the administration’s actions on the two biggest domestic issues — the economy and health care.

    Translation (I ran the paragraph through Babelfish’s Media to English); campaigning is easier than actually accomplishing stuff.

    Stuff like giving us a tax credit which ended after six months instead of a permanent tax cut and standing around with their collective finger in their collective nose wondering why the economy doesn’t get better. Standing on the edge of a huge tax increase because they won’t extend the Bush tax cuts and wonder why businesses won’t invest in jobs.

    An erratic health care plan that changes every time someone talks about it. A Congressional Budget Office that knuckles under to Democrat threats and produces faulty numbers. A homeland security director that issues two opposing evaluations of our security within twelve hours.

    A known terrorist who clams up as soon as he’s read his Miranda rights. Another known participant in the worst terrorist attack in our history gets most of the evidence against him tossed out of court. All because the administration thinks terrorism has a legal solution.

    Obama’s centerpiece of his national security plan was to close Guantanamo – where’s that going? He tried to return some detainees to Yemen, until the blogs and the media convince him that it’s a bad plan and does a 180 degree shift of that policy.

    For Pete’s sake, nearly a year into his presidency, over eight years since 9-11, he announces that we’re at war with al-Qaeda.

    But Axelrod said the best antidote to all the criticisms aimed at the White House and to declining poll numbers will be a genuine turnaround in the economy.

    “People are unsettled and unhappy about that, and they should be,” he said. “The politics will follow the progress, and as we climb out of this terrible hole that we’ve been in, the politics will respond.”

    You’d be more convincing if you took your finger out of your nose, Dave.

  • Racism – just another day in the Democrat Party

    Trent Lott (former Democrat) was forced from his position as Senate Minority Leader for this comment at (former Democrat) Strom Thurmond’s retirement tribute and 100th birthday;

    “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

    Bill Clinton, attempting to convince Ted Kennedy to back his wife for president rather than Barack Obama said;

    A few years ago, this guy [Obama] would have been getting us coffee.

    Janeane Garafalo said the teapartiers were “straight-up racists” for opposing the politics of Barack Obama. Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in supporting Obama noticed that he is “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

    That’s tame compared to actually opposing Obama’s policies, huh? Garafalo also called Michael Steele “that Black guy in the Republican party” a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, that he tries to “curry favor with [his] oppressor”. But we’re the racists.

    I could drag out all of the Robert Byrd quotes and catalog his career with the KKK, but you all know about it – just like every Democrat knows it. Name one Republican in Congress, living or dead, who spent ten years in the KKK. Um, you can’t.

    Republicans get accused of using “code words” to communicate with the racists, but the Democrats use the actual words of racists without accountability.

  • It’s Saturday Night Links

    Just a few quick links since there is nothing too big for it’s own post. So lets begin;

    To start off, there has been a fourth Church that has been burned down Malaysia that is suspected of being linked to the law that allowed Christians to use Allah to refer to God.

    The violence comes as Muslims protest a recent court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use the word “Allah” for God. Muslims believe Allah, an Arabic word, should only be used by Muslims.

    Next is that the suicide bomber that killed at least 6 CIA personal set off his bomb before he was searched.

    Those at the scene on Dec. 30 had been trying to strike a balance between respect for their informant — best demonstrated, in the regional tradition, by direct personal contact — and caution, illustrated by the attentiveness of the security guards, according to CIA officials.

    Also in Dallas a guy eager to see his girlfriend caused the Airport to be shut down for seven hours when he wanted a hug before she left.

    “He just wanted to say goodbye to his girlfriend, I don’t think he realized what he [was] doing,” said another pal, Ning Huang, 33, who plays soccer with Jiang.

    Separately

    TSA guard Ruben Hernandez had temporarily left his post unguarded, highlighting porous security at the airport despite recent terror alerts.

    Lastly seems that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has publicly apologized for his comment back in 2008.

    “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans, for my improper comments.”

    We shall see what happens with that. Now if he would appoligize about his comment that the Iraq War was Lost. I know, not going to happen.

    To end it off I figured something funny. Remember when Cindy Sheehan made her “Under the Death Star” speech? Well seemed that this cartoon came out tow years before it and looked like it was made for it.

  • Military retired pay drops

    This is more informational than a personal complaint, but retired military pay dipped in real dollars this year for the first time my memory – just like it did for Social Security recipients. How’d it happen?

    Well, the Obama Administration and Congress didn’t give SS folks and retired military a cost of living allowance, even though the cost of living has gone up this year. However, because Medicare went up for SS recipients, and we lost our “tax cut”, which wasn’t really a tax cut anyway, Our payments went down. Sure it was just a little bit, but it happened despite all of this talk about taking care of the needy and the little guys.

    It was just a coupla bucks for me, probably so small that it would have got eaten up in taxes anyway, but that’s not my point. There are people out there who depend on every penny they get from their SS and retired paychecks, despite the fact that the six-figure crowd in DC think it’s a tiny amount. How many times have we been bombarded with ads that tell us that seniors have to choose between food and medicine – yet that’s exactly who gets stiffed by this administration.

    Now the Bush Administration made sure we got our COLA increases even when inflation was minuscule, but that didn’t stop the AARP crowd from complaining that it wasn’t enough (it’s not a merit increase, for Pete’s sake).

    Regardless of what you think about retired military pay or Social Security, you still have to admit that those folks were promised those checks and fulfilled their end of the bargain, but the government doesn’t feel that it has to meet it’s obligations and that’s just not right.

    Sure it probably helps with the national budget, but it seems that the people who’ve always sacrificed (since the Depression) are always expected to suffer in silence. I just thought they needed someone to speak up for them today.

  • Our WTH moment

    at-war-with-al-qaeda

    I’ve been catching snippets of Obama’s speech yesterday about our engagement in the war against terrorists, and actually I’m pretty amazed. I’m not amazed that the President has decided that the war against terrorists is important, I’m amazed that he acts like it just started on Christmas Day.

    We all know how history and events revolve around him, but apparently, he doesn’t plan on engaging in anything unless he starts being criticized about something. The “connect-the-dots” moment, the “buck stops here” moment – it all contributes to our “What the Hell?” moment.

    In his speech, he mentioned 9-11 and reported on the events of that day like none of us had ever heard of it or the extent of the casualties. Like he’s giving us permission to be outraged about it now. From Fox News;

    Obama announced about a dozen changes designed to fix that, including new terror watch list guidelines, wider and quicker distribution of intelligence reports, stronger analysis of those reports, international partnerships and an interagency effort to develop next-generation airport screening technologies.

    How much of that is new? Um, none.

    Idiot revelations like we heard yesterday should be followed by a string of firings – all the way down to the knucklehead who wrote his speech. The “buck stops here” speech should have been given on the day of the attempted attack, if not right after the Hasan attack at Fort Hood. Two weeks later makes it lame and stale.

    Of course dicksmith disagrees with me;

    It’s funny that after eight years of a President who refused to intellectually analyze a problem and simply made “gut” decisions that often turned out badly, there are still talking heads out there who consider deliberation a bad thing.

    It’s funny that there’s no evidence that Bush made “gut decisions” or that any of them turned out badly, for that matter, but dicksmith will take every opportunity to swipe at Bush, even though he’s been gone almost a year. But Bush didn’t bother doing focus groups for a month before he arrived at a conclusion and a policy – like this president apparently.

  • The Left and their irrational babbling

    Now, I’m no expert on national security planning, but I’m pretty sure I’m smarter than Crooks and Liars’ John Amato and FireDogLake’s Eli based on today’s readings. Amato is upset that Cokie Roberts said what has been known about Democrats since the Korean War – when it comes to national defense, Democrats are idiots;

    ROBERTS: Well, it’s always politically difficult for Democrats when they are dealing with an issue like terrorism. It remained the Republican’s only winning issue through most of President Bush’s second term, and it’s a particular problem for a Democrat who hasn’t served in the military. But the policy problem is that it takes up a great deal of the administration’s time, and will from here on out – particularly when the Senate Intelligence Committee starts hearings in a couple of weeks.

    Here you have it. So sayeth Cokie, queen of the gasbags. All Democrats are weak, weak, weak on national security. It’s fine with Cokie and the Villagers that most of the Bush and Cheney team refused to serve in the military when they had the chance, but during the Bush years the Villagers never questioned Republicans over their military experience or commitment to national security. Yet, it’s just Jim Dandy to question a Dem’s military creds.

    Nevermind the fact that Bush was a fighter pilot in the National Guard and that Cheney was too old to be drafted for combat service in Vietnam. But no one ever questioned the Bush administration’s military experience or commitment? Really?

    Did I dream the 2004 election campaign? The whole misinterpretation of Bush’s DD214 and his performance evaluations which were read and commented upon by obviously illiterate baboons every night? The flocks of Democrats who tried to tell us that John Kerry’s Vietnam service trumped Bush TXNG service? The same dorks who placed such a high value on Cheney’s pre-Vietnam draft deferments who won’t even mention Biden’s deferments during Vietnam?

    So Eli from FDL explains to us how Obama can become a national defense expert;

    …what really makes someone a Serious Qualified Expert on national security is a little voice in their head screaming “AAAAAHHHH!!! The scary brown people are coming to kill us we have to kill them first OMG OMG OMG!!!” 24 hours a day, and the ability to bedwet on command.

    If Obama can develop an appropriately irrational fear and hatred of Muslims, then no one will care that he’s never served in the military. I suggest that he pretend that all Muslims are, alternately, health industry CEOs and progressive bloggers – that should make him a respected national security expert in no time.

    An irrational fear of Muslims? Really? The scary brown people? How naive and immature. Just days after an attempt on the lives of hundreds of folks peacefully flying into Detroit from Amsterdam, and countless others beneath their flight path. Weeks after one of those “brown people” shot scores of his comrades at Fort Hood. Months after a Muslim shot two Army privates catching a smoke break in Little Rock.

    Here’s my advice for those two if they want to be national defense experts; abandon the childish baby crap and act your freakin’ age.

  • Alexander says we’re as bad as the Khmer Rouge

    Our favorite Air Force interrogator, Matthew Alexander, is writing at Vote Vets again. This time he says he’s been to a Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia – and of course it reminds him of Guantanamo and the way we treated the folks we detained there.

    It is estimated that nearly 3 million people were executed during the Khmer Rouge’s purge of Cambodian society. It’s hard not to walk through the Tuol Sleng prison and read about the atrocities and not think about the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Although Gitmo has never come close to the scale and depth of what happened at Tuol Sleng, there are disturbing similarities.

    One of those “disturbing similarities”;

    The entire operation at Tuol Sleng was tightly controlled by the Khmer Rouge high command (they eventually even executed the torturers, cycling in new ones, fearing that they were contaminated by their proximity to the prisoners). Duch, the infamous Tuol Sleng warden who is currently on trial in Cambodia for crimes against humanity, took his orders directly from Pol Pot.

    Yeah, I remember Cheney ordering the guards at Gitmo murdered. Don’t you? Another “similarity”;

    The second thing that strikes you about Tuol Sleng is that many of its victims were children. Judging from the photos of the victims on display, some of them couldn’t have been older than five. The Khmer Rouge exterminated offspring of opposition members like pests. They were concerned that subversive tendencies would be inherited. At the Guantanamo Bay prison, the U.S. continues to hold minors under the age of eighteen. It is a barbaric practice.

    Yeah, there’s no difference between 5 years old and eighteen. And if I’m not mistaken, there are no more eighteen-year-olds at Guantanamo. Matthews’ experience as an interrogator lasted four months, according to his records and the extent of his experience was as a team leader who conducted few, if any, of the actual interviews. Matthews never went to Guantanamo – all of his stories are secondhand rumors, but that doesn’t stop him from using those stories in his book, or on Vote Vets for that matter;

    There is a sign depicting the rules for prisoners, called the Security Regulations, and rule number six reads: “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.” That reminded me of the infamous sign at the Baghdad airport prison, allegedly used by Special Forces, which read, “No Blood, No Foul.”

    (Emphasis mine) Allegedly? Really? That’s a faithful telling of the tale?

    I guess it’s no wonder that at the AFOSI convention a few weeks back, when his fellow OSIs found out who Matthew Alexander really was and that this particular major was working for George Soros and the ACLU, he was a bit of an outcast. I wonder who put the word out about him.

  • The Story That Won’t Go Away (and Why It Shouldn’t)

    Today I saw a story on my Yahoo homepage about a third party crasher getting into the White House state dinner last November. The Secret Service hasn’t released the party crasher’s name yet, but has said that it was a male with the Indian delegation and that he didn’t get close to the President or First Lady.

    When this story broke, I got very interested in the details behind it and not because I am a huge fan of The Real Housewives series, polo, or Virginia wine (I wouldn’t be caught dead near any of those three things). As I mentioned in my first post, I spent the first part of my enlistment serving as part of the Marine Security Company at Camp David. I worked a lot with the Secret Service and developed a respect for their professionalism and skill. I also know and served with one of the Marines that was photographed with the Salahis. When information about how the Salahis got into the White House started to emerge and when the White House started to try and throw the Secret Service under the bus, naturally I got a little suspicious about the story the White House was putting out about how the Salahis got in.

    Lets first go over some things about the Salahis that haven’t been widely reported.

    1. Tareq Salahi was a member of the Virginia Wine Board and eventually was appointed its chairman by Governor Warner. When Tim Kaine was elected governor of Virginia, he appointed Salahi a member of the state’s tourism board in the hopes that Salahi would help attract wine tourists to the state and that Virginia would develop the equivalent of California’s Napa Valley. Tim Kaine’s inaugural committee even bought $25k worth of wine from Salahi’s now bankrupt vineyard. Salahi also has donated money to both Republican and Democratic politicians in Virginia. Its no secret that Tim Kaine helped Obama win Virigina (and the Presidency) in 2008 and Kaine is now chairman of the DNC.

    2. The Salahis were organizing a polo event with the Indian Embassy and were at a reception at the Indian Embassy two months prior to the incident at the White House. Obviously they would have known a lot of the staff at the Indian Embassy.

    3. Tareq Salahi is a board member of a Palestinian “peace group” that has hosted powerful Democratic and Republican politicians.

    Take these facts into account and its obvious that the Salahis aren’t just social climbers. They have some very real connections in DC, especially in some powerful Democratic circles. So what does this have to do with the Secret Service and what happened at the White House state dinner? Having worked security at VIP events in the DC area, I can tell you that at these events a lot of pressure is put on the security personnel not to “offend” the wrong people by “inconveniencing” them with time-consuming security procedures.  Usually at events like this, members of the social staff put out a list of guests and there is usually a member of the social staff at each security checkpoint, nominally there to greet guests but really there to make sure the Secret Service, Marines, Capitol police, or whoever don’t piss off anybody important.

    So here is what I really think happened: the Salahis show up with all the cameras and hoopla and walk up to the first checkpoint (I guess Katie Couric was there too). The Secret Service has a guest list and they aren’t on the one the Uniform Division has (the people responsible for perimeter security at the White House and other Presidential events). They check with the social staff (which probably included people from the Indian Embassy who had to have known the Salahis) and either they have a list with the Salahis on it (and the White House won’t admit it) or they assume that the Salahis had to have been invited and don’t want to risk offending them (and most importantly their friends). So the social staff tells the SS to let them in (or threatens them if they don’t) and the rest of the story everybody knows by now.

    There is no “smoking gun” to prove that this is what happened at the checkpoint. But most of the blame is being placed on the Secret Service that is unfair to them. The real story here is how the Obama White House is throwing three Secret Service Officers under the bus in order to protect their social staff, most importantly the head social secretary Desiree Rogers.

    So much for looking out for the little guys…