Monthly Archives: November 2012
More “senior U.S. official” gibberish
From CBS comes this as delivered by “a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the [CIA’s original Benghazi] talking points”:
“The points were not, as has been insinuated by some, edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack,” the official tells CBS News, adding that there were “legitimate intelligence and legal issues to consider, as is almost always the case when explaining classified assessments publicly.”
“Most people understand that saying ‘extremists’ were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn’t shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement,” added the official. “Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants.”
If the above is true, why did the President and his surrogates tie themselves up in knots in order to blame the deaths of four Americans at Benghazi on the YouTube Mohammad video? The answer is transparent: they needed to do so to keep their pre-election ‘we won the war on al Qaeda’ narrative from unwinding.
Furthermore, if the above block quote is true, why would Mr. Obama then claim during the presidential debate that he called Benghazi ‘a terror event’ (which he didn’t) the next day in the Rose Garden?
Obama denied, people died.
ODNI was the CIA’s Benghazigate editor
From CBS:
…the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to “al Qaeda” and “terrorism” from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack – with the agreement of the CIA and FBI.
While CBS then goes way out of its way to tell us neither the White House nor the State Department made the changes, the bigger point is this: the DNI is a part of the Obama Administration and the DNI has a boss. It’s the President.
Furthermore, if ODNI hadn’t made the changes, would someone else—say the “White House” or the State Department—have still directed the very same changes in order to ensure Susan Rice could thus misrepresent the Administration’s pre—election narrative on the Sunday talk shows? After all, on short-turn coordination, changes tend to be made in parallel rather than in serial.
More CBS:
However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too “tenuous” to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence.
So here’s the story and the Administration is sticking to it: the al Qaeda links were too tenuous but the Mohammed YouTube video/spontaneous protest story wasn’t?
Barry, your scandal-dog excuses still don’t hunt.
Bigger than Watergate.
Benghazigate: wait, there’s more!
While the focus on who edited the Petraeus brief to Congress regarding the Benghazi attack swirls around, here’s (perhaps) a better question: who authored the Benghazi-riots-were-caused-by-a-YouTube-video idea?
When we know who penned the idiotic “spontaneous riot” theory, we’ll likely also know who edited the CIA’s talking points.
Benghazigate: all roads lead to Obama (that is, the White House, the Obama Administration, or the Obama re-election effort. And yes, they overlap.)
All dots lead to Obama
When David Petraeus says the CIA’s talking points on Benghazi were edited to take out references to the event being a terror attack, there’s only one place that such editing could occur: from somewhere above the CIA and from somewhere within the Obama Administration machinery.
In other words, although our sadly incurious media has no desire to connect the dots—or to follow them in any way—the dots all lead to Obama.
Obama personally? Perhaps, although it seems likely that a politico from his re-election effort would be more likely. After all, who has the most to lose? (Oh, that would be Obama, but anyway…)
Is it possible that Petraeus, having to perform as CIA Director with his not-yet-public sex scandal hanging over his head (and his entire political future very much in doubt) was compromised at his initial Benghazi brief to Congress? All dots lead to ‘yes.’ And is it possible that now the damage has been done, Petraeus is free to tell the truth?
Connect your own dots: your results will not vary.
Pre-Petraeus scandal, it appeared Leon Panetta would be tagged as the Administration’s Benghazi scapegoat for the death of the four Americans who were left to twist in the wind during the Benghazi attack. Now it’s clear the Administration thinks the narrative on the event has changed from the Administration’s disgraceful and inept performance to the personal foibles of Petraeus. In such a case, no Administration scapegoat is required (other than the one they already have).
Tell me again how many people were killed as a part of the Watergate scandal?
Benghazi: Obama denied, Americans died.
Benghazigate and Obamafail
If Broncobama had defended the Americans in Benghazi with the same vigor he’s defended his own performance before, during, and after Benghazi, we’d have four more alive Americans.
But instead Barry offers “What are you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”
Fast and Furious: bigger than Watergate. Benghazigate: bigger than Fast and Furious.
One of the very few things scarier than Obama’s performance so far would be the Biden presidency. And Barry, you can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.
The brilliance of Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat is a voice in the wilderness. (The wilderness is, of course, the New York Times.)
Ross has not only captured the essence of Obama’s big government America but he’s boiled it down to a bumper sticker which the left can now offer: the government will solve your problems.
Big government thus becomes Staples with its “easy” button.
Skeptics ask “If big government were going to solve our problems, wouldn’t they already be solved by now?” Or “If deficit spending could fix the economy, shouldn’t it be in grand shape by now?” Similarly they can point the failures across history of government to solve people’s problems; consider Nazi Germany, the USSR, Cambodia, and Red China for starters.
The reality is big government does not create value that’s commensurate with it’s costs. That, and the reality the poor you shall always have with you.
Big government promises to solve economic problems, disassociation, single parenthood, and the challenges it has itself created, fostered, and fermented via multiple moral hazards:
…the weaker that families and communities are, the more necessary government support inevitably seems.
Likewise with the growing number of unmarried Americans, especially unmarried women…
…the typical unchurched American is just as often an underemployed working-class man, whose secularism is less an intellectual choice than a symptom of his disconnection from community in general.
It seems that liberals fail to acknowledge that man is a fallen creature and that government is made up of flawed human beings just like us. The bigger the government (or the more powerful the government; they seem to go hand in hand), the bigger the accumulated flaws. The founding fathers had it right: government is to be constrained and not encouraged.
Non-government solutions—like families or the Church—face the challenge of still having to work through flawed human beings but generally with a better root-cause analysis. That is, they more often acknowledge our problems are first a condition of the heart (or of our basic nature) and somewhere after that, a condition of the pocketbook.
Why Obama Fried Rice
When Susan Rice was sent out post-Benghazi to peddle the Administration line on the Sunday morning talk shows it was, as is everything, a test.
Or as George Patton might say, ‘you’re always on parade.’ In this case, it was a propaganda parade.
Rice ended up misrepresenting the truth on Benghazi and misleading the American people. Either she did this knowingly (shame on her and ta ta Secretary of State) or she did this unknowingly (shame on the Obama Administration and those who knew the truth and ta ta Secretary of State). And shame on most of the media for their remarkable incurious positions (it was pre-election; yes, I’m shocked, shocked!) on the topic.
Now the President is posturing with regard to Susan Rice, challenging the non-believers—there is more than a handful—to ‘come after me.’ They will. Obama’s position on Rice is absurd and painfully transparent.
And the only reason(s) Obama was up there bluffing on Rice was to attempt to 1) distract the public and the media on Benghazi, 2) rally the base post-election by spiking the football/posturing, and 3) provide Rice back some of her dignity—not that she deserves it—for so fully and faithfully taking a fatal head shot for Barry and the team.
Without a political miracle (and maybe even with one), Rice is toast.
Tim Tebow, John Fox, and Rex Ryan
Last year, I sensed John Fox had little confidence in Tim Tebow, but he knew Kyle Orton wasn’t the answer and took a chance (that and the massive public clamoring for Tebow). The rest is history.
With the arrival of Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow became as disposable as yesterday’ news and he departed Denver for the bright lights and vague promises of New York. Chances are that John Elway didn’t have much confidence in Tebow either given his desire to sign Manning and therefore, See ya Tim. Good luck and you’re a great guy and all that…
However, with the Jets, Tebow hardly takes a snap (punts excluded). Why is this? Even a blind man could see Mark Sanchez isn’t the answer.
The difference is in coaches. Fox gambled on Tebow and won. Rex Ryan gambled against Tebow and is losing. In fact, Ryan has doubled and tripled-down with Mark Sanchez, hoping against hope that he’ll become a quality NFL quarterback. While the house would normally exercise a margin call on Ryan’s bets, so far it hasn’t happened.
As Lisa Olsen says, the Jets don’t deserve Tim Tebow, perhaps because all he does is win.
Amnesty for all peoples, at all times, for all things
From Rich Lowry on the post-election rush for amnesty for illegal aliens:
The networks had barely called the election for President Barack Obama before GOP elites rushed to embrace an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
First, the term GOP elites is as much a misnomer/oxymoron as public servant or liberal think-tank.
Next, why not pander? After all, amnesty for illegals is little different than the bankruptcy amnesty the federal government will be seeking sooner or later on unrepayable government debt (in polite company, please be sure and use the term restructuring). Most of the debt is at the federal level, where they can still easily create money but there’s plenty at the state and local levels as well.
Is it possible, perhaps even likely, that America’s politicos are even more stupid than many Americans?
Things that can’t continue forever, like spending 140% of your income, won’t.
Obama’s Nightmare
Tom Friedman thinks Obama’s nightmare is the Middle East.
Friedman is the man who, like Henry Kissinger, can introduce complexity into a coin toss and clarity into… well, into nothing.
Actually, Obama’s nightmare is that he lost the election. And for most tax-paying Americans, the nightmare is Obama himself.
Now go to that voodoo that you do (so well) is what Friedman should suggest to the smartest President ever. You know, all Barry really has to do is unleash his inner Obama/own bad self and let us be China for a day (or two).
The illusion of control
Mr. Obama won re-election and the residual sugar high may mean he thinks more highly of his power than is warranted.
He’s shown he can’t control the sea levels, heal the economy, reduce the debt, or put America back on the Dean’s List. Why? Well, for starters, his policies are idiotic. Next, he’s only a highly flawed human being like all the rest of us (ok, this President may actually be more flawed, but you get my point).
And now he’s challenged his non-fanboys to ‘go after me.’
I think he’ll get some takers.
This President has failed to learn his place. The President sets the agenda; others add to, modify from, or delete that agenda.
Use your illusion as best you can, Barry.
Petraeus: do as I say and not as I do
Ralph Peters skewers four-stars David Petraeus, John Allen, and William “Kip” Ward for their gross hypocrisy.
The general held himself up as a paragon of self-discipline and model family man. In Iraq and then Afghanistan, he rigorously enforced “General Order No. 1,” which prohibits our troops from fraternization, all sex, alcohol consumption, the possession of pornography and, generally, from any activity that might make the boredom and terror of this kind of war more bearable. When our troops screwed up, they got hammered.
Generals can take a weekend in Paris and get drunk (as Gen. Stanley McChrystal did), but the grunt who goofs in a firefight faces a court-martial.
It’s been said the higher you climb the ladder, the more your rear end will be exposed. The reality seems to be the higher you climb the ladder, the more people you have covering your rear end.
Here’s the explanation: the more of an entourage one has, the more the entourage will protect the person leading the entourage. Why? It’s either inappropriate loyalty or the fact the members of the entourage have lashed their own success to the person possessing the entourage. (Plus the folks in the entourage themselves hope to one day have their own posse and will want to be treated the same way.)
I suppose an existentialist would say since there is no true basis for morality, it really doesn’t matter and that these three simply reflect some sort of random mutation regarding organizational Darwinism or regarding their own lack of free will. Red of claw and fang and all that.
The Petraeus/Allen/Ward cases are the military version of the same sort of hypocrisy and lack of accountability that brought down Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and others, but the larger point is that Petraeus is a do as I say and not as I do guy. How many others like this (or worse) are there? Answer: they are legion.
The government and especially the top of Administration, is thick with these types: think Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle on their taxes, Eric Holder on Fast and Furious, Warren Buffett (Muppet/prop/useful idiot and not an Administration member) on his crony capitalism, Joe Biden on his plagiarism, Barack Obama on his drug use, Hillary Clinton with her cattle futures, etc..
Over time, you get the government you deserve.
Dye, Obama, Dye
Is Broncobama’s hair a modern miracle or is there a more pedestrian explanation?
Perhaps Solyndra found the fountain of youth before going Chapter 11 or the Chevy Volt also possesses a flux capacitor…
At right as snipped from The Washington Examiner. The caption says nine days passed between the two shots and yet the one on the right is more current.
You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you…
If I could only work in a reference to ESAD (pronounced e-sad, like e-mail, only different), the beloved hairdressing acronym for Eat $%#@ And Dye.
Next his hat will be on backwards, he’ll be showing us Michelle’s tattoos, and he’ll be calling me dude.
California or Chicago?
California used to be mockingly known as the land of fruits and nuts.
Now, as seen at right, it’s Chicago (and a voting majority in California is just plain nuts) where nanny-mayor Rahm Emanuel is giving Michael Bloomberg a run for his money your money.
While there’s a 37% rise in murders in Chicago for the first half of 2012, there’s still enough time for the mayor’s mighty government to figure out how many milligrams of sodium per serving are permissible in school vending machines.
That the school kids can’t read or write or are out killing one another is another issue: priorities, people, priorities.
Is patriotism the last refuge for a scoundrel? No, I think there’s an update: It’s for the children.
Obama part deux off to quite a start
The President survived domestic disasters like chronic unemployment, massive and unrepayable federal debt increases, Obamacare, and Fast and Furious. He survived foreign policy fumbles like the Russian Reset, the Arab Spring, and Benghazigate. He was re-elected by catering to his base and by placing the fear of Romney into many minds.
Now the full effect of the President’s leadership is about to hit the fan.
The markets seem to have had a Romney win baked in. With Obama’s re-election, they’re down to last summer’s level—when it seemed Romney had no chance. The U.S. economy is trending towards recession; the fiscal cliff looms.
The federal debt had a very bad month. The federal intake was $184 billion, the expenditures, $304 billion. Do the math, Barry: it’s the spending, stupid.
The President’s CIA Director ex-CIA Director is in the throes of a total meltdown with huge cover up and criminal conspiracy implications. Along the way, the Administration may be violating its own guidance on underground prisons and interrogating and detaining enemy combatants. Even reliable lefties are starting to freak about Obama’s persistent Stasi-like surveillance state.
Innovation that threatens the status quo/preferred narrative is at risk of being smothered in the crib of government.
The Harry Reidtard-led Senate is worried about polar bear carcasses.
Finally, a majority of voters in California appears to be just as stupid as a majority of voters in America. Dude, where’s my bailout?
This will not end well (and technically, we’re still in Broncobama’s first term).
Welcome to Obamaland!
The lies you once heard from the government: “We’re glad to see you and we’re here to help.”
The lies you now hear from the government (not an all inclusive listing): “We’re still glad to see you. We’d never read your e-mail or sell your information to a third-party. We respect your right to privacy.”
From the Hill:
Google received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company’s biannual “Transparency Report” released on Tuesday.
The increase in the first half of the year is attributable to the Administration’s run up to the election.
Post-election, the government’s expected requests will be due to a combination of factors, mainly political payback, preparing for the mid-term and 2016 elections, and of course, the Petraeus/John Allen/Jill Kelley/Paula Broadwell case.
The FBI is too busy to get to Benghazi and collect evidence; they’re not too busy to bust into Broadwell’s house and carry her belongings and personal information away. What was the charge again, fellas?
Who is the bill-payer for the Administration’s Benghazi debacle? It would appear to be one David Petraeus.
Southern Poverty Law Center places itself on its own ‘hate groups’ list
(Montgomery AL, PMNS)
In an unusual move, the Southern Poverty Law Center has placed itself on its own controversial ‘hate groups’ list. The listing was seen by SPLC President Harvey Cattledike as one needed to bolster his organization’s fading credibility and by others as required to move back into the public eye. In conjunction with the listing, the group is also releasing a new t-shirt (seen at right) and media campaign.
“We, the board and I, went back and looked at our meeting minutes and public statements and made the determination that we clearly met the essential characteristics of what we call a hate group,” Cattledike said. “These include closed-mindedness, idiotic thinking, thought crimes, being out of touch, hate, and parental abandonment issues.” Cattledike did not say what prompted the review but SPLC watchers suggested it might be related to federal funding.
One board member not cleared to speak publicly said, “Look. We’re something of a misnomer since we aren’t really interested in mitigating poverty, we receive most all our funding from sources outside the south, and we have no lawyers who’ve passed the bar and only one paralegal on the whole staff. While we’ve had good success in judge shopping on certain cases, we’ve been pretty much rudderless—and clueless—in the post-Civil Rights era, going on fifty years now. We need something to get ourselves back in the headlines and furthermore, it isn’t like we’re unqualified to be called a hate group… we are, and very much so.”
In a public statement e-mailed to the media, SPLC spokesperson Jill Botswana-Anthony said, “The SPLC has made the list of SPLC hate groups. We hope we will be watched by Homeland Security, law enforcement, and the intelligence community, creating good jobs for the region and more work for grant-writers everywhere. At minimum, we hope to create tension and if fully successful, we may even give birth to hate, possibly even shootings, which will stimulate the medical and professional grievance industries. The SLPC will continue to push for fair affirmative action and racial preferences, for justice as we see it, for hate, and for our continued existence.”
The controversial SPLC, viewed in unfavorable terms within the south, by people of poverty, and by the legal community itself, will soon see if their strategy is working with the upcoming round of Congressional discussions regarding public funding for “obscure and unhelpful groups.” Normally the SPLC’s federal funding would be at risk due to the so-called fiscal cliff, but by Executive Order, President Obama placed the funding for all obscure and unhelpful groups (including the SPLC, ACORN, any organization with the word “green” or “public” or the letters “U” or “E” in it, and community organizers) outside the normal budget sequestration process. Hearings are scheduled to begin after the Thanksgiving recess.
(Philup Nubia and Zerxes Jones-Smith from PMNS’s Mumbai Information, Research, and Translation Service enclave contributed to this article.)
Who is “the White House,” what did it know, and when?
From ABC regarding the Benghazigate/David Petraeus resignation debacle (BTW, far too much can be described as a debacle at this point in the history of the Obama Administration):
The FBI withheld its findings about Gen. David Petreaus’ affair from the White House and congressional leaders because the agency considered them the result of a criminal investigation that never reached the threshold of an intelligence probe, law enforcement sources said today.
I’ve asked it before and I’ll ask it again: when is the FBI the first responder for what’s been described as harassing (but not threatening) e-mails received by an ordinary citizen (the “social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base”)?
The song remains the same: never.
Good grief, $1.6 billion disappears under Jon Corzine’s watch and nothing happens and yet the FBI goes all in with their e-peeping for the MacDill social liaison receiving harassing e-mails?
(Update: the WSJ reports “The FBI investigation began with five to 10 emails beginning around May…”)
The next ABC blurb:
Despite the lengthy investigation into Broadwell by the FBI, the White House says it was not made aware of it until Wednesday, the day after the election, a revelation that surprised many.
OK, who is “the White House” and is that different than the “Obama Administration”? Building’s don’t speak or hear but people—people in the Administration—do. And doesn’t the FBI work for Eric “My People” Holder? Think this was compartmentalized from Holder? Neither do I.
Had Petraeus been a normal career intelligence type and not a plausible political candidate in a holding pattern, would this entire “investigation” have occurred? No.
While Petraeus is guilty of disgracefully self-destructing (as an admitted zipper-case), somewhere, J. Edgar Hoover isn’t just smiling: he’s laughing his guts out.
What is a form of flattery?
Not to pat myself on the back or anything (Ow, my arm!) but imitation is said to be a form of flattery. Compare and contrast, if you dare.
First, from me on 1 November 2012 regarding Benghazigate and the CIA’s statement:
However, the tone shifts with the next sentence. “No one at any level in the CIA told anyone not to help those in need,” means 1) the CIA was not the decision-make on this issue, 2) the CIA elevated the issue to the decision-maker, and 3) the decision-maker choose to not take action. The assertion is presented as an absolute and it’s an absolute which begs more questions (that is, the kind of questions where depositions are taken and testimony is provided).
And of course, after the fact, Leon Panetta has said: “You don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.” Not only is this an idiotic offering—the military and first responders almost never have full knowledge of any situation—but it’s effectively a non-denial that requests for aid were not only made, but that they were rejected.
Who was the decision maker, Leon?
Next, from Jed Babbin at The American Spectator on 11.12.12:
The statement said that no one in the CIA chain of command turned down those pleas for help. Which could only mean two things. First, it confirmed that the pleas for help did come, and were heard at the highest levels of government. Second, that someone higher than Petraeus had to have turned down the requests for help from Americans under fire. In the executive branch of government, the only person who outranks a cabinet member such as the CIA Director is the president.
Actually, the Director of National Intelligence has the entire intelligence community including the CIA; that’s why Clapper could suggest Petraeus resign. But my Babbin’s larger point is correct: the non-response of the U.S. government regarding the Benghazi terror attacks has been both a tragic debacle and a national security scandal.
And while great minds may think alike, some think faster than others. (And for less pay, I’m sure.)
Similarly, we were also out in front of the New Yorker in our curious and informed cynicism.
Think the Administration will appoint a special prosecutor a la Valerie Plame and Scooter Libby? Me neither…
The left: legalized pot & homosexual marriage; no Big Gulps, cars, or guns
The left has a phrase it often falls back on. They fall back on it so often they have an ongoing contract with an important national-level printing company that specializes in protest signs, bumper stickers, and t-shirts. The phrase is “keep your laws off my body.”
The fundamental issue of the slogan is one of consent and the desire for governmental non-regulation, that is, personal freedom.
The phrase “keep your laws off my body” is thought to have its origins in the left’s desire for unfettered abortion, but it also has implications for the homosexual community, the use of recreational drugs, and more. However, some have postulated that abortion is bad for the child (and for the mother); that a homosexual lifestyle is less safe and healthy than an otherwise equivalent heterosexual lifestyle; that drugs make people do dangerous and foolish things.
On the other hand the left has no problem—it’s always for your own good—in keeping you from buying a 20 ounce Coke, or a weapon (for self-defense or recreation) or in making life so impossible to drive a car that there’s no practical choice but to opt for “public transportation” (unless you’re a high-ranking state official: then your time is more valuable and it’s state troopers driving your limo, taxpayer-provided helicopters, or even Air Force One).
Seat belts? Click-it-or-ticket (even in states that don’t require motorcyclists to wear helmets; go figure). “Junk food” vending machines in our schools? The left is outraged. One of Michelle Obama’s main goals in life is to impose joyless eating on our children and eventually, everyone else (except for an approved and particular state-approved “elite” which is somehow more equal than others).
And regarding that issue of consent and personal freedom, think about taxes. Whose money is it to begin with?
It could be a while before the left extends their thinking to its logical conclusion: “Keep your laws off my wallet, my car, my gun, my free speech, my religion, my children and family, and my Big Gulp.”
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