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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Covering for Obama

    So a walk-through of the media and this morning and they’re doing their darndest to keep Libya off of the front page. Washington Post’s only mention of the President is a puff piece about how he walks a tight wire on race (what else). But nothing on Libya. The Washington Times, however, has finally picked up on the story, reporting that John McCain has shook the cobwebs from his brain and started talking about Libya;

    “For literally days and days they told the American people something that had no basis in fact whatsoever. And that is the president of the United States,” the Arizona Republican said in an interview on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.” Mr. Obama “said that he immediately ordered action to be taken no action was taken over seven hours. Now we find out the secretary of defense decided not to take any action.”

    […]

    “Somebody the other day said to me, ‘This is as bad as Watergate.’ Well, nobody died in Watergate,” Mr. McCain said. “This is either a massive coverup or incompetence that is not acceptable to the American people.”

    In the editorial pages, Joseph Curl picks up the Watergate analogy;

    The main lesson from Watergate (after the no-brainer that you should never hire a guy named “Tricky Dick”) was this: The Cover-Up Is Worse Than The Crime. For some reason, Professor Obama seems not to know this crucial lesson. Or he’s just arrogant enough to say, “Well, that doesn’t apply to someone as brilliant as moi.”

    Make no mistake, though: There is a massive cover-up under way in the White House. Nothing else can explain the endless contradictions over the attack that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans dead. The White House has already had to rewrite the entire narrative once, holding a late night conference call with reporters just before a House hearing two weeks ago in which State Department officials told a whole new tale: There was no “spontaneous” protest over some anti-Islam video posted on YouTube. Instead, there were dozens of heavily armed terrorists who poured over a 9-foot-high fence covered with barbed wire to attack America on 9/11.

    Yeah, the cover up has been going on since the irrational and implausible story that the attack occurred because of a spontaneous demonstration over a poorly executed movie – a movie the was produced more poorly than the attack on the consulate. Who brings a mortar tube to an impromptu demonstration?

    At Blackfive, Deebow doesn’t like the idea that Obama is blaming the military for his won paralysis in reacting to the attack in time so save four Americans.

    A link to the Washington Examiner sent to us by Ex-PH2 asks why Romney isn’t talking about Benghazi. For the record, I asked the campaign that question last night and I’m still waiting for an answer.

    As far as the media goes, a young sergeant in Afghanistan wrote to tell us that the TV in their messhall is tuned to BBC and al Jazeera, English because they can’t trust the US media to tell them the truth anymore.

  • Then who was it?

    Fox News is reporting that the president has been avoiding questions on the Benghazi raid and recent reports that the White House denied fire support for troops in contact at the consulate which resulted in the deaths of four Americans;

    The president said neither yes or no Friday when asked pointedly whether the Americans under attack in Benghazi, Libya, were denied requests for help during the attack.

    Fox News has learned from sources on the ground during the Sept. 11 attacks that the CIA chain of command twice told agency operatives to “stand down.”

    “The election has nothing to do with the four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” the president said first in a TV interview with an NBC affiliate in Colorado.

    When asked again, Obama said, “The minute I found out what was going on, I gave three very clear directives — Number 1, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to,” the president said in a TV interviews with an NBC affiliate in Colorado.

    But in the vacuum of non-answers from the President, the White House’s National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor recently told the folks at Yahoo News that “Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi” which still doesn’t answer the question. Since the Defense Department and the CIA have both told the media that neither of them denied fire support for the embattled Americans in the consulate, then who was it? It only leaves the State Department without a denial.

    Our new buddy, William Kristol at the Weekly Standard claims that only the White House could have made the decision to intercede, so someone isn’t being forthcoming with the American people who are clamoring for answers. COB6, a long-experienced special warfare officer, himself, agrees;

    Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.

    If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

    If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!

    From the Fox News link;

    Obama also said in the TV interview, as he said previously said, the administration is going to “investigate what happened to make sure it never happens again” and find out who was involved in the attack so they can be brought to justice.

    Yeah, at this point, I think the only way we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again is to remove everyone who was involved in the decision-making process in this instance come election day. Since the president is so adamant about NOT making this an election issue, it only makes me want to make it MORE of an election day issue. That might be the only way to get any straight answers out of this White House.

    There’s a rumor flying around the internet today that General Carter F. Ham, the Africom commander is being fired because he tried to send reinforcements to Benghazi to relieve the defenders of the consulate. While it’s true that his successor has been named (General Rodriguez was announced as replacement on Oct. 18), I’m not sure why Ham is leaving the post, so it appears to be just speculation at this point. Probably another issue that won’t be resolved until we change teams in the White House.

  • Charles Woods speaks

    Charles Woods tells Sean Hannity last night about the death of his son, former SEAL Ty Woods who died in Benghazi;

    Whether or not you like Sean Hannity is not germane to this discussion. Most of the video is Charles Wood’s words. So if you trolls want to talk about Hannity, go somewhere else. If you want to talk about the content of the 11 minute video, write to you’re heart’s content. I’m growing tired of trolls derailing a legitimate conversation with irrelevant minutiae.

    Woods also tells of his encounter with the President when the body of his son returned. Woods says the President sounded “whiny” and his hand shake was like a dead fish, and that he knew the President was lying about his son death from the encounter. From Fox News;

    He claimed that at one point, Biden came over to him and said, “in an extremely loud and boisterous voice, ‘did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?’”

    Woods said in the Beck interview: “I will ask you the question, is that the voice of someone who is truly sorry?”

    In a separate interview with radio host Lars Larson, Woods said shaking Obama’s hand was “like shaking hands with a dead fish.”

    Woods said: “He kind of just mumbled, you know, ‘I’m sorry.’ His face was looking at me, but his eyes were looking over my shoulder like he could not look me in the eye. And it was not a sincere, ‘I’m really sorry, you know, that you’re son died,’ but it was totally insincere.”

  • Abandoned!

    Fox News is reporting that they’ve talked to people who are familiar with the radio traffic that was related to the attack on the Benghazi consulate. Apparently, the two former SEALs who were killed that day were repeatedly denied permission to aid the folks who were involved in the conflagration at the consulate and finally, they disregarded their superiors and went anyway.

    At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

    As COB6 pointed out in an email, if there was a guy “painting” targets with a laser designator, that means that there was air support on station near the consulate, most likely an AC130 gunship. So all of the elements were on the scene to rescue the four Americans and disrupted the obviously planned attack, but they were denied the support they needed to save their lives.

    According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

    Yeah, they’re not going to waste their time painting a target if there’s nothing to shoot with.

    JP sends a link to ABCNEWS in which Leon Panetta warns everyone against “Monday morning quarterbacking”;

    Panetta said that they didn’t have enough “real-time information” to send military forces to respond.

    “(The) basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta said, according to The Associated Press. “And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.”

    I don’t how much more “real time” information they needed since they were in radio contact with people who were on the ground with eyes and GLDs on the targets.

    The president got a “3AM phone call” and then went to Las Vegas costing the lives of four Americans by avoiding making the proper call in exchange for some campaign contributions. If Watergate cost a President his job, this cover up should certainly cost this one his job next week.

    There’s much more at the excellent article at the Fox News link written by Jennifer Griffin and you should read the whole thing.

  • Weinstein and cast defend bin Laden movie

    I’ve seen reports that say the Harvey Weinstein project due to be broadcast on PBS two days before the election about the bin Laden raid has been edited to make Mitt Romney look bad, but I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know, but the Stars & Stripes says Weinstein and crew are denying it;

    National Geographic Channels CEO David Lyle says the film was indeed recut – but to show less footage of the president than an earlier version of the film.

    “I think the end titles run longer than Obama’s time on screen,” Lyle said.

    The movie has been accused by conservatives of having a political agenda in part because of its Nov. 4 premiere date and its backing by Obama supporter Harvey Weinstein. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that a copy of the film provided to the paper showed that it had been recut to strengthen Obama’s role.

    Fox News reports this about the movie;

    But rather than focusing on the heroes who carried out the mission, President Obama now takes center stage in the film, with voice-overs, still photographs and archival footage being added after “SEAL Team Six” was purchased in May for a reported $2.5 million by Harvey Weinstein, a big supporter of the President.

    Not only that, Meghan O’Hara – a producer for Obama supporter Michael Moore’s films “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “Sicko” and “Bowling for Columbine” – was the one hired to gather that extra footage.

    A report in the New York Times said the new footage serves to “strengthen Mr. Obama’s role and provide a window into decision-making in the White House,” a move the report says will “bolster claims that the 90-minute film amounts to a political stunt.”

    Indeed FrontPageMag.com called it an “Obama Infomercial From Michael Moore’s Favorite Producer” which they say is essentially “about the man that sat on his ass while they (SEAL Team Six) risked their lives.”

    Those reports are at odds, so I guess which ever side you’re on, the movie is not going support your view. I tend to believe the New York Times report, in this case, but I guess we’ll see.

  • The widening crisis

    The other day, we talked about a plot in Jordan that was thwarted when native Jordanians were arrested after bringing both conventional and chemical weapons into Jordan from Syria in order to spread terror there. Today the Washington Times reports that anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia has sent about 200 members to Syria in order to protect Shi’ite shrines, threatening to turn the civil war into a religious battle;

    An official in the Badr organization, a conservative Shiite bloc that is part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s ruling coalition, said Shiite militant groups have acquired new advanced and heavy weapons and were gearing up for a fierce reaction if the Zainab shrine were hit. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

    A Shiite militant who described himself as a member of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia said about 200 Iraqi fighters drawn from the ranks of various Shiite militias, including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Hezbollah Brigades, have made their way to Syria in order to protect shrines there.

    Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia is also believed to be sending fighters to help the Assad regime, which is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

    The Guardian reports that Turkey is calling on the US and UK to intervene in Syria in order to preclude a widening humanitarian crisis that threatens Turkey’s own security.

    “How long can this situation continue? I mean in Bosnia, now we have Ban Ki-moon [the UN secretary general] apologizing 20 years after. Who will apologize for Syria in 20 years’ time? How can we stay idle?” Davutoglu told the Guardian in an exclusive interview in Istanbul.

    “We [Turkey] are doing all we can to help these people, using all diplomatic capacity to stop this bloodshed. But there should be a much more concerted effort by the international community. The best way we can see now is direct humanitarian intervention.”

    So where are the Europeans? Obviously, the US can’t police the whole world, and Lord knows we’ve heard the Euro-wienies complain that the US does just that, but when it’s their turn to step up, NATO and the European community never does until the US commits our dwindling resources.

    Turkey can go pound sand as far as I’m concerned since they left the 4th Division floating off their coast and wouldn’t let through Turkey to Iraq in 2003, and now they want us to commit our blood and treasure to their crisis? F- them.

    But this is typical of what happens in the world without US leadership, the leadership that Obama went around the region apologizing for in 2009. I can’t wait until Romney is president and the entire Left will be demanding that he take action in Syria after their guy watched 32,000 people die there and watched the whole region collapse into crisis.

  • Bob Woodward: President Obama was “not correct” on sequestration

    The Washington Times reports that Bob Woodward is telling anyone who will listen that Obama was “not correct” (read that as a nice way to say “lying”) in regards to his remarks the other night during his debate with Mitt Romney on sequestration – those odious cuts that are due to hit the Defense Department after the first of the year;

    Mr. Woodward reports in his book, “The Price of Politics,” that Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors and White House Office of Management Director Jack Lew took the “sequestration” proposal to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, and it was then presented to Republicans in Congress.

    During Monday’s debate, Mr. Obama said that the sequester is not something that he proposed, “it is something that Congress proposed,” adding that “it will not happen.”

    Press secretary Jay Carney, briefing reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, continued with the administration’s line, however.

    “What the president said … was a reiteration of what his position has long been,” Carney said. “The sequester that was designed and passed by Congress was never meant to become policy, it was never meant to be implemented.”

    In other words, the President lied when he said, quite clearly, that it was not something he proposed, when in fact it was his idea, or the idea of someone in his White House, and he signed off on it when his minions took it to Congress.

    He also said “It will not happen”, but that’s hard to believe since it’s legislation passed by Congress, and the Executive Branch is charged with executing legislation, which is where the term “Executive” comes from, I think. So, I’m guessing that either President is lying to himself and us, or he doesn’t understand the process after having the job for four years. Or maybe a little of both.

    It also looks like a lame duck Congress isn’t going to be too motivated to stop sequestration when it comes back after the elections.

    Of course, sequestration is due to hit our troops hardest. According to their report “Sequestration Cuts Influencing Presidential Picks Of Military Voters, First Command Reports“, the First command Advisory Board writes;

    “Military families are understandably concerned about the changes that are coming their way,” said Scott Spiker, CEO of First Command. “At a time when economic concerns continue to weigh heavily on many Americans, servicemembers and their families are facing the added worries of how their lives will be impacted by sequestration, defense cuts and the broader reshaping of the U.S. military.”

    I remember the nutrolls we went through that were mandated by Congress in the late 80s, and our troops are understandably concerned these days about their future.

  • The chair that got bin Laden

    So I took this picture of a conversation that was going on between the empty chair that got bin Laden and his Secret Service Agent yesterday;