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

Category: Politics

  • Who needs a patriotic President?

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    Associated Press attributes the dust-up over Obama’s apparent lack of patriotism to Conservatives;

    Sen. Barack Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.

    Now Obama’s wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she’s really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

    Conservative consultants say that combined, the cases could be an issue for Obama in the general election if he wins the nomination, especially as he runs against Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain.

    I’d suggest that it’s not exactly a strictly conservative concern. After all, the man is trying to be leader of the country, not leader of the United Nations. Just by definition, he should pledge himself to the good of this nation above all others – it’s supposed to be the job description for the employment he’s seeking.

    Of course, it gives AP a chance to remind of John Kerry’s fall;

    Opponents of Sen. John Kerry proved in the 2004 election that voters are sensitive to suggestions that a candidate is not sufficiently patriotic. The Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, even though he won multiple military honors and was lauded by his superiors.

    The Swift Boat campaign started as a relatively small television ad buy that exploded into an issue that dogged Kerry for months. The Massachusetts senator has conceded since losing to President Bush that the campaign and his lackluster response to unsubstantiated allegations he considered unworthy of a reaction likely cost him the election. And the term even became part of the campaign lexicon — swift boating.

    And they missed the entire point. John Kerry made a career of being the anti-patriot and paid the price at the polls. It took other Vietnam veterans to remind the country of his dishonorable conduct. Oh, and he wouldn’t set the argument aside by merely signing his Form 180.

    “Whenever I’m in the United States Senate, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” Obama frequently tells voters.

    “I’ve been going to the same church for 20 years, praising Jesus,” he adds.

    Retired Major General Scott Gration, an Obama military adviser, said he expects the attacks will only increase if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

    “People are projecting things and taking things out of context,” Gration said. “There’s absolutely no question in my mind that Michelle and Barack are extremely patriotic, appreciate our freedoms and our values and everything else that the flag represents.”

    See, there’s the problem – no one has to come out and say “President Bush is patriotic” nor does John Mccain have to say that he says the pledge of allegiance. If you have to explain something like that, the electorate doesn’t believe it – you might as well drop out now.

    By the way, I’ll take any opportunity to post that picture from now until such time it’s clear that Obama isn’t going to be president. My Mom, the life-long Democrat, sent it to me this week as soon as she saw it for the first time.

  • All out of love

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    Backed into a corner, down 11 straight States, Hillary’s claws have come out. The tears don’t even work anymore, so it’s time to revert to the wronged woman/school marm and to invoke the ghosts of Karl Rove and George W. Bush (Wall Street Journal link);

    Sen. Hillary Clinton ratcheted up her attacks on Sen. Barack Obama today, comparing his campaign tactics to those of George W. Bush and urging Ohioans to see past his momentum.

    “Enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters at a press conference today.

    She clutched two negative fliers sent to Ohio voters by the Obama campaign that she says make false claims about her position on health care and trade agreements. “Shame on you Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign that is consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you,” Mrs. Clinton said.

    I guess she doesn’t like being held accountable for her voting record since Obama’s campaign just criticized her for her support of NAFTA and the fact that everyone would pay for her healthcare plan whether they can afford it or not.

    Obama claims it was just a disingenuous Clinton camp tactical response than simple outrage at Obama camp tactics (Washington Times link);

    Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Obama of Illinois doubted the authenticity of her outrage since the mailers in question have been circulating and weeks ago provoked response from her campaign aides.

    “I’m puzzled by the sudden change in tone unless these were just brought to her attention. It makes me think there’s something tactical about her getting so exercised this morning,” he said. “The notion that somehow we’re engaging in nefarious tactics … is pretty hard to swallow.”

    Mrs. Clinton, dressed in bright red and vowing she would continue her candidacy, said a voter handed her the mailers on the rope line after a rally and characterized them as “false” attacks that have her “deeply disappointed.”

    The Washington Post had a more substantive response from Obama;

    “Senator Clinton, as part of the Clinton administration, supported NAFTA. In her book, she called it one of the administration’s successes,” he said. “We’re pointing that out in a state that’s been devastated by trade and is deeply concerned about the position of the candidates on trade.”

    It was indisputable, Obama added, that Clinton’s plan required people to buy health insurance even if they did not think they could afford it. She may not want the plan described that way, he said, just as he did not like her characterizing his plan, which does not include a mandate, as leaving out 15 million people.

    “We have been subject to constant attack from the Clinton campaign except when we were down 20 points. They need to take a look at what they’ve been doing,” Obama said.

    So while the Democrats argue about who’ll be the most Liberal, Democrat voters are beginning to wonder about the substance of their promises (Washington Post link);

    It is also a story the two Democratic presidential candidates are promising to change. As Ohio’s pivotal March 4 primary approaches, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have each called for significant infrastructure investment, development of alternative energy and other “green-collar” jobs, while promising to toughen environmental and labor standards that accompany free trade deals.

    Those ideas are welcome here in heavily unionized and heavily Democratic northwest Ohio, but at the same time, no one seems to believe they go far enough to reverse the powerful tide of globalization that many blame for the constant manufacturing job losses.

    “They identify with the situation, but they don’t do anything about it,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, (D-Ohio), whose district includes Toledo. “They are descriptive, not prescriptive. We want more detail and we want it now.”

    Quite a bit different than applause for Obama blowing his nose or for Hillary’s release of a few tears for the cameras, the Democrat candidates are giving Republicans fodder for this summer’s campaign.

    Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades writes that Hillary’s campaign is falling apart. At Big Dog’s Weblog, Big Dog writes that Hillary can’t cherry pick her accomplishments from her record. From Blue Crab Boulevard;

    “…he sounds confident, she sounds shrill. That is not a recipe for a Clinton victory.”

  • Two Cubas

    Don Surber found an article in the Telegraph about tortured prisoners in Cuba;

    Four dissidents released from Cuban prisons after 5 years of captivity showed their bruises and gave their testimony of the horrors they endured.

    The AP didn’t report on it. The NYT and Washington Post didn’t report on it. I don’t expect the major networks to report on it.

    Naw, the Washington Post carried a self-serving piece of garbage from two lawyers chasing ambulances in Gitmo instead;

    As you read this, we expect to be in Guantanamo, meeting with the man President Bush mentions when he talks about the intelligence gained and the lives saved because of “enhanced” interrogation techniques. We represent Saudi-born Abu Zubaydah in a legal effort to force the administration to show why he is being detained. And this week, with our first meeting, we begin the laborious task of sifting fact from fantasy. Yet we worry it may already be too late.

    We shouldn’t expect the Washington Post to worry about real human rights violations in that island prison, when two shysters can make up better stories to play to the ignorant and pliant readership of that rag.

    From the Telegraph story;

    Mr Castillo, 50, a journalist who wrote articles critical of the regime, told The Sunday Telegraph: “It was terrible. It was like being in a desert in which sometimes there is no water, there is no food, you are tortured and you are abused.

    “This was not torture in the textbook way with electric prods, but it was cruel and degrading. They would beat you for no reason even when you were in hospital.

    “At other times they would search you for no reason, stripping you bare and humiliating you. There was one particular commander at a jail in Santa Clara who seemed to take delight in handing out beatings to the prisoners.”

    Mr Castillo, who claims he was denied proper medical aid for diabetes and heart problems, added: “We are nothing more than a reflection of the human cost of the fight being waged by the Cuban people.”

    Compared to the horrors of Gitmo;

    …he has gone through quite an ordeal since his arrest in Pakistan in March 2002. Shuttled through CIA “black sites” around the world, he was subjected to a sustained course of interrogation designed to instill what a CIA training manual euphemistically calls “debility, dependence and dread.” Zubaydah’s world became freezing rooms alternating with sweltering cells. Screaming noise replaced by endless silence. Blinding light followed by dark, underground chambers. Hours confined in contorted positions.

    Mr. Castillo was beaten for writing his opinion, Zubudayah was alternately hot and cold for facilitating the death and injury of innocent people. So which does the Washington Post give column space? The one with a pair of free Washington lawyers.

  • Is Dr. Dean Illiterate?

    The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire Blog reports that the NY Time’s sliming of John McCain has become a money-raising bonanza for Team McCain;

    [T]he Republican National Committee and Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign wasted no time yesterday sending out email fund-raising pitches riffing off a highly publicized front-page New York Times story that questions McCain’s record on ethics and suggests he may have had an extramarital affair.

    It appears to have been effective. Reports circulated this afternoon that the McCain campaign has been flooded with donations since the plea went out. Conservative pundits, like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, have also been giving McCain some free airtime, using their shows to bash the Times’ decision to run the story.

    It worked so well, Howard Dean wants to cash in on the free publicity, too, and sent out his own email solicitation;

    Republicans “spent the day breathlessly assailing the New York Times as ‘liberal,’ ignoring the ethics lapses the team of reporters had uncovered,” Dean writes, “The fact is, John McCain is facing legitimate questions about lobbyists, favors, and campaign contributions, just as he did during the Keating Five scandal that nearly derailed his political career twenty years ago.”

    Dean continued: “Seeing more dollar signs, the McCain campaign and the RNC decided to jump at the chance to take advantage of the distraction they had created to raise money. They had spent the day firing their supporters up, trying desperately to change the subject, and then they literally cashed in on it. It was textbook sleaze. So, let’s hit back.”

    Hit back against what, Howie? Hit back against Republicans defending the lies and innuendo being propagated against them? Instead of taking the high ground and criticizing the New York Times like the rest of the honest Left, Dean takes the Dan Rather “fake but accurate” approach.

  • Fact checking the fact checker

    ABC News is so Obama. So Obama that they’ll carry his water. That’s what happened today. Jack Tapper decided to investigate the story Obama spun last night in the debate about the infantry platoon leader who was apparently scrouging weaponry for his undermanned platoon in the local weapons bazaar.

    The Army captain, a West Point graduate, did a tour in a hot area of eastern Afghanistan from the Summer of 2003 through Spring 2004.

    Prior to deployment the Captain — then a Lieutenant — took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but — in ones and twos — 15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.

    The platoon was sent to Afghanistan with 24 men.

    Obama made it sound as if these problems were all occurring today – not 4-5 years ago when we were still trying to figure out what kind of war this going to be.

    I’m guessing that understrength units in the 10th Division were brought up to strength before they deployed to Iraq by cross-loading units. It also means that this young lieutenant’s platoon wasn’t up to full strength, either – there’s no way he had a full strength platoon in an understregth unit. If this happened at all, to man all of the major weapons systems unit-wide, the Division G-1 probably moved people by specialty to where they were needed. Since the captain admitted that his platoon was only assigned four Humvees, 24 men was more than he can handle anyway. In the Army we call it task force management. Iraq and Afghanistan were two different wars each having different personnel requirements.

    At Fort Drum, in training, “we didn’t have access to heavy weapons or the ammunition for the weapons, or humvees to train before we deployed.”

    What ammunition?

    40 mm automatic grenade launcher ammunition for the MK-19, and ammunition for the .50 caliber M-2 machine gun (“50 cal.”)

    That’s hardly the “ammunition” shortage that Obama described is it? But there’s more;

    Also in Afghanistan they had issues getting parts for their MK-19s and their 50-cals. Getting parts or ammunition for their standard rifles was not a problem.

    “It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”

    “The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.

    Now they needed training time in Drum for the .50 cal M2 and the 40 mm, but they didn’t need any training time for a Soviet machinegun? Amazing troops.

    I can’t imagine there being supply problems in a 9,000-mile supply train. So the problem wasn’t with the weapons the troops needed to perform their daily missions, there weren’t ammo shortages and weapons shortages.

    I find it difficult to believe a responsible platoon sergeant would let his troops duct-tape a Soviet-era 12.7 mm (.51 cal) machinegun to their vehicle since no weapons mount would sufficiently and safely attach a foreign weapon to their Humvee.

    Oh, and up-armored Humvees weren’t even an issue for Afghanistan during this captain’s tour. Roadside bombs were strictly a problem in Iraq at the time.

    Of course, it’s all milbloggers’ fault;

    I might suggest those on the blogosphere upset about this story would be better suited directing their ire at those responsible for this problem, which is certainly not new. That is, if they actually care about the men and women bravely serving our country at home and abroad.

    Pound sand, goober. Just because you talked to some guy, that doesn’t make the story true. The ammo shortages and spare part shortages had been chronic problems in the military since before 1999 – so don’t give me your sanctimonious horseshit about caring for the troops. Why is it we’re hearing about five years later, where was your punk ass five years ago? One reason we’re hearing about it so much later might be because it’s false. Dumbass.

    Ace smells something fishy. Uncle Jimbo has General Obama “In the crosshairs”. Michael Goldfarb reports Congressional inquiries.

  • Obama is a babe in the woods

    Barack Obama just lost any chance to be president. This clip will haunt him from now until November;

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    The jist of it comes from Curt of Flopping Aces;

    OBAMA: You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

    And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

    Now, I know what vacuous point he’s trying to make; because of the war in Iraq, our troops’ resources are stretched too thin, but let’s look at this thing.

    First of all, An Army captain running a platoon must be one dicked-up captain. A platoon sergeant lets a second lieutenant pretend to run a rifle platoon, not a captain.

    Secondly, a rifle platoon (my full Bradley rifle platoon was 35 men with a forward observer and a medic attached, so I’m wondering about the 39-men thing) would NEVER split it’s troops to different theaters – something about command and control, small unit leadership and unit cohesiveness just makes that stupid right from the git-go. What would the Army have to gain by sending parts of units to different missions hundreds of miles apart instead of just sending one intact unit of the size it needs?

    The “using Taliban weapons” story is a crock, too. Maybe they used the weapons they captured for a myriad of reasons (the AK is virtually indestructible and impervious to dirt, the distinctive sound can confuse the enemy as to who they’re exchanging fire with for a moment, the AK makes a good club, etc…) but not because they couldn’t get supplies.

    Obama makes it sound like the Army just swaps out rifles when they run out of bullets. Now it may be possible someone in an extended exchange grabbed up an AK when they burned through their basic load (about 200 rounds in my day), but that’s not the fault of poor supply – that’s an over-abundance of targets.

    A commenter at Flopping Aces makes the excellent point that if Obama is so concerned about supplying our troops in theater, why did he vote against supplying them?

    Honestly, this sounds like the old Viet Nam war stories I used to hear from people who repeated stories they heard from other people who weren’t “there” either.

    But, then, we can’t expect Obama to know a thing he’s talking about because he’s never been fitted for a pair of combat boots, he’s never fired an AK or an M16 and he probably couldn’t spot a Humvee unless it was alone in a parking lot of BMWs. He wouldn’t know how First Sergeants and Sergeants Major turn over rocks looking for the stuff their troops need to survive in combat.

    And no mission even starts if the troops don’t have what they need to win the day.

    Obama is a babe in the woods – a very stupid, gullible, ignorant babe in the woods.

    Confederate Yankee writes;

    This leaves us with two possibilities.

    Barack Obama is a liar. He (or someone he plagiarized) simply made the tale up out of the whole cloth.

    Barack Obama is a rube. Anyone with any sense of how the military works at all would immediately sniff this out as a series of false stories. Perhaps Barack Obama, the man who would be Commander in Cheif, is so ignorant of all matters military that he could be easily fooled by a fraud.

    Neither possibility says anything good about Obama.

    Crotchety Old Bastard gets his licks in;

    He is either a pathological liar or dumb as a frigging stump. In either case, he is totally unfit for any office and especially the Presidency.

    Stuart Koehl at The Weekly Standard Blog;

    Overall, I think Obama would be better sticking to his “message of hope”–hope that nobody will ever ask him to make any substantive statements on military affairs, ever again.

  • Castro: US wants to annex Cuba

    The Miami Herald translates Castro’s first newspaper piece since “resigning” his position in government. Apparently he’s now channeling Hugo Chavez;

    In his first newspaper column since stepping down Tuesday, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro opened ”ideological fire” against Washington and the candidates for the White House, saying President Bush is looking to annex Cuba.

    It’s an old charge, one that dates back to pre-Spanish-American War months when some US congressman were afraid that  the US might be tempted to annex Cuba after it was freed from Spain. Included in the authorization for war was the Teller Amendment which expressly forbade the US government from annexing Cuba.

    The mention of the Teller Amendment is left out of many discussions about US-Cuba relations. I remember it because I spent an entire Latin American History class arguing that the US had no colonial interests in Cuba in 1898. I’m sure the fact that I embarrassed the professor (and his mentor who had written our textbook and conveniently left out any mention of the Teller or Platt Amendments) affected my grade.

    What possible reason would the US need Cuba, in 1898 or now. The US was expanding it’s naval capability in 1898 and having coaling stations 90 miles from our shores would do no good. Today, we trade with every nation in the Caribbean without having to apply colonial pressure to them to provide us with fruit and sugar. What could Cuba possibly own that we’d want to take advantage – besides vintage  US-made automobiles.

    Just more scare-mongering to keep the Cubans under thumb.

  • Kinsley; ignore your lyin’ eyes

    Today in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley in an aptly titled opinion piece “Defining Victory Downward” tries to send out the message to the anti-war/anti-Bush troops that all is not lost (from their perspective) the “surge” isn’t working. So convoluted is his reasoning, at first Kinsley feels a need to redefine the word “surge” downward for us.

    I don’t know who invented this label, but the word “surge” evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial. What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal.

    Although he is right, in some respects, his whole premise for the failure is that the tide of troops hasn’t swept back out yet – well, except for only 30,000 troops (nearly 20% of the surge forces) who’ve been rotating back for the last three months. But in typical Leftist fashion, Michael declares the surge a failure because there might still be 100,000 troops in Iraq a year from now (62% of surge strength).

    But the whole strategy of the surge was to stabilize the situation in Iraq so that a political solution to Iraq’s balkanized tribes could be worked out without mortar shells falling on them every ten minutes. It has never been about reducing our troops under a deadline – some nebulous Kinsley cooked up in his apparently-adled mind.

    In fact, Charles Krauthammer, in the same issue of the Washington Post, reports on some of the political solutions that have been reached in recent weeks;

    First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

    Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue — about 85 percent of which is from oil — to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

    What will the Democrats say now? They will complain that there is still no oil distribution law. True. But oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces in the national budget. The fact that parliament could not agree on a permanent formula for the future simply means that it will be allocating oil revenue year by year as part of the budget process. Is that a reason to abandon Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran?

    But Democrats feel a need to keep moving the goal posts while the political game continues, otherwise they’d have to admit the failure of their ideas and their politics at some point. Admitting that the surge is working wouldn’t be very encouraging to the Democrats allies in al Qaeda and Iran and end the war before the Democrats can shoulder aside Republicans and take credit for the victory.

    Besides, I don’t see Michael Kinsley declaring Bosnia a failure because we still have troops there 12 years after President Clinton told us they’d be withdrawn.

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