WHY Obuma is a Liar; an Unmitigated Disaster As POTUS

[Warph]

Obama To Proceed With Arming Muslim Brotherhood-Ruled Egypt With F-16s And M1A1 Abrams Tanks Despite GOP Opposition...

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/military-source-us-arms-deal-continuing-despite-lawmakers-objections?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter




(Egypt Independent) — Egypt's negotiations with the US to acquire F-16 aircraft and M1A1 Abrams tanks are proceeding smoothly, a senior Egyptian military source has said.

The source added that the negotiations are proceeding regardless of statements made by political opponents of US President Barack Obama, in what may have been an oblique reference to calls by US Congressman Vern Buchanan for the suspension of this deal over what he described as the "dictatorship of President Mohamed Morsy."

He also said that news about fresh military assistance or deals always sparks controversies, which tend to subside when the deals are concluded. He alleged that those Congressmen or officials who oppose supplies of advanced weaponry to the Egyptian army belong to the pro-Israel camp.

He added that demands made by some Congressmen to stop weapon deals with Egypt are motivated by electoral interests, adding, however, that the US administration does not take into account the opinions of voters when it makes assistance deals because such deals are connected to higher strategic interests.




A fleet of new Marine One helicopters for him, 400+ diplomatic limousines, too.  SEAL Team 6 and Ambassador Stevens not so much.

Slowly, this anti-American commie bastard is giving -- GIVING -- our repubilc away.  Oh, and let me thank the 3 million deadbeat Republican voters who didn't cast a ballot in November and the other millions of low information voters who have aided and abetted this criminal activity against our country.  You all should all be slapped silly.

And for you people that have NO IDEA what is going on in the Middle East, read:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/


Oh... and before I forget:

The Beauty of [Obuma's] Islam

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[jarhead]

Warph, that will take a few stitches

[Warph]

Reflections on the upcoming second inauguration of President Obama

The second inauguration of our sitting president will take place this coming weekend as this is being written. It is a time of great happiness for most of my neighbors and friends inside the beltway, indeed for most people in the country.

But I find myself in despair for our beloved country. It is quite likely that a large minority of the nation's citizens agree with my pessimistic mood. The reasons for that despair are not difficult to discern.

Our beloved country is in terrible condition. The awful evidence is easily seen everywhere, for those willing to look. Our economic situation is unsustainable. Yes, the government of the richest country in the history of the world is, by all reliable measures, broke. Our national government cannot pay its bills and every day sinks deeper in debt because it is addicted to spending at extravagant rates. We are on our way to becoming the sad equivalent of Greece or another failed state.

There is plenty of blame to pass around for this condition and it should be shared by Democrats and Republicans, by George Bush and by Barack Obama, but the major part of the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Obama and his administration. He has been in power for four years and he promised that he would deal with all of our major problems. He has not done so.

To put fine point on the matter, our president terrifies me, even though during most of my life I have been a liberal Democrat and voted for him in his first election.

If viewed honestly his first term has been an unmitigated disaster. The national debt is at an historic high. So is unemployment. Despite these sad, undeniable facts, he was elected to another term. That of course is typical of his history for much of his life. He is a master politician of the Chicago school and yet a disaster as a manager and practical leader.

His political skills helped him get selected as the editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. Yet he proved a failure as the leader of that publication. There is no evidence that he authored one written comment or publication during his entire tenure.

His political skills also led to his election in 1996 to the Illinois State Senate where his work there was without any sign of major distinction. Often, he voted "present" rather than show the guts to fight for significant new laws.

Despite this lackluster record in Illinois, his political savvy led to his election to the United States Senate in 2004. His record in the Senate was equally without distinction in part because he spent most of his time there running for president. Yet, he was elected president in 2008 and, as I said, I voted for him. Like many millions of citizens, I managed to overcome my disgust at his association with his bigoted, racist, anti-Semitic pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Mr. Obama now is seeking to take the lead in getting the country beyond the so-called fiscal cliff. In my view, had he been a proper leader, the country would have avoided the fiscal cliff months ago. His failures of leadership were the main causes of the horrors around the fiscal cliff.

Yet, again his political mastery has again produced a situation in which he is given credit for being a good leader and the press and the public are placing the lion's share of the blame for our dire economic situation on Congress and the Republicans.

If history is to be repeated, which is likely, somehow the country will move beyond the fiscal cliff and Barack Obama will move forward with governing the country while basking in the warm glow of press and public applause.

And again if history prevails, he will be a disaster in his second term as he was in the first. Race relations will continue to get worse under his leadership; so will black crime. The nation's status in foreign affairs will also continue to deteriorate. Israel will continue to be treated as the major problem in the Middle East rather than our most trusted and valuable ally in the region and the world. The master politician will continue to be a failure as a leader and manager — and all the while he will be applauded as a great chief executive by the slavish major media and by a majority of the public.

When the country finally collapses in a sea of debt and red ink, or even in a race war, neither he nor his Democratic Party will be blamed. It is likely that another Democrat will be elected to the White House in 2016.

Those in brief are the reasons why I am in despair and why we all should despair for our wonderful country as the inauguration day approaches.

I pray that my pessimistic forecasts do not prove to be true in the near future, but I fear that the forces of history do not allow for much hope in this regard — except in one way. If millions of good Americans agree with these awful forecasts then perhaps — just perhaps — there will be a groundswell of popular demand that drastic measures must be taken very soon to change the disastrous direction of the precious American nation.


About the Author
Arnold S. Trebach, J.D., Ph.D., the author of several books, is professor emeritus of public affairs, American University. He was involved as a front line protester in the original civil rights movement and has been a federal civil rights official.

[Warph]

                

    An Inauguration to Make Orwell Proud

By Michael Brown
1/14/2013

It was bad enough for the White House to disinvite a pastor from praying at President Obama's inauguration because he expressed orthodox Christian views in a sermon delivered almost 20 years ago. But to disinvite him in order to reflect "this administration's vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans" is enough to make George Orwell proud. Talk about a classic example of doublespeak!

To be sure, Orwell never used the term "doublespeak," but in his classic volume "1984," he referred to "doublethink" and "newspeak." Others have combined these terms into "doublespeak," meaning to say one thing and mean the opposite. As noted on a contemporary Orwell website, "In 1984, when BIG BROTHER and the Party say PEACE they mean WAR, when they say LOVE they mean HATE, and when they say FREEDOM they mean SLAVERY."  http://www.orwelltoday.com/dblspkthennow.shtml

Today, in 2013, when this administration says "inclusion and acceptance of all Americans" it means "exclusion and rejection of multiplied tens of millions of Americans." And when this administration uses the "diversity," word, it means "narrow conformity," in strict accordance with the Gay Activist Doublespeak Lexicon, as reflected in the comments of Addie Whisenant, spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Whisenant explained that President Obama had asked Pastor Louie Giglio to pray at the inaugural ceremonies before learning that this evangelical pastor had preached an evangelical sermon in the mid-1990's entitled, "In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality." Using the "diversity" word, she noted that the inaugural committee was "not aware of Pastor Giglio's past comments at the time of his selection and they don't reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural."

So there you have it: A popular evangelical pastor (well known, I might add, for his work against sex trafficking) was excluded from participating at the inauguration of President Obama in order to "celebrate the . . . diversity" of America and to reflect the "administration's vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans" (both quotes from Whisenant).

As I noted on October 13, 2012, "In the upside down, gay activist lexicon, tolerance means intolerance, inclusivity means exclusivity, and diversity means my way or the highway."

The whole inaugural event becomes even more Orwellian when you realize that:
1) President Obama will be using two Bibles when he is sworn in (the Lincoln Bible and the Martin Luther King Bible), yet he will be doing so while explicitly disavowing the contents of those Bibles on a number of critically important points (the divine mandate to protect innocent life and the divine disapproval of homosexual practice being two of the most glaring).

2) In 2009, at the ceremonies held one day before President Obama's first inauguration, Bishop Eugene Robinson was asked to bring the opening invocation, yet Robinson has been one of the most divisive figures in American (and even world) religion since making history as the first openly gay bishop ordained by the Episcopal Church. So, a respected Protestant pastor like Louie Giglio is considered divisive whereas an openly homosexual bishop who has caused a fissure in the Episcopalian Church of America and the Anglican Church worldwide is considered an ideal choice. (Chad Griffin, president of the gay activist Human Rights Campaign, agreed that it would be right to exclude Giglio from this year's event, since "Participants in the Inaugural festivities should unite rather than divide," presumably just as Robinson "united" Americans in 2009.)

3) Although Pastor Giglio was branded as "vehemently anti-gay" by Think Progress, preaching one major sermon on the subject of homosexuality over a 20 year period hardly qualifies as being "vehemently anti-gay." And when Giglio stated almost 20 years ago that acting on homosexual desires is a choice, that homosexual practice is "a sin," that "homosexuality is less than God's best for his creation," and that the "only way out of a homosexual lifestyle ... is through the healing power of Jesus," he was hardly expressing viewpoints that were "vehemently anti-gay."

4) Just four years ago, despite protests from gay activists and their allies, Pastor Rick Warren offered the benediction at Obama's inauguration, even though he had publicly opposed same-sex marriage in California in 2008. Now, based on a mild sermon preached almost 20 years ago, Pastor Giglio has been excluded from offering the benediction. How dramatically things have changed in just four years.

In a very important article, Rev. Al Mohler was quick to label this "The Giglio Imbroglio — The Public Inauguration of a New Moral McCarthyism," noting that, "The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment" – along with the orthodox expressions of Judaism and Islam, among other world faiths.

Yes, the administration has decided to scorn the views of perhaps 150 million Americans (if not many more) in order to celebrate our country's "diversity" and to reflect "this administration's vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans."

Somewhere, Big Brother is smiling, and in America, it's 1984 in 2013. In fact, it's been 1984 for a quite a few years already. The problem is that most Americans don't have a clue. Doublespeak has been doing a masterful job.

[Warph]

                        

Crabby Obama Caught in Budget Trap

by Chris Stirewalt

"Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit." ...BHO

-- Then-Sen. Barack [Nut-case] Obama, D-Ill., in a March 16, 2006 floor speech explaining his decision to oppose a request to increase the federal debt limit, then set at $8.2 trillion.

Welcome to the reality of living in a nation with a government that either will not or cannot pass a budget.

When borrowing and spending happen out of tandem, the pleasure of purchasing isn't tinged with the pain of additional debt and, likewise, the discomfort at new debt isn't leavened with happy thoughts for politicians of welfare checks and new fighter jets.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to spend and to borrow, but when the two things happen out of step, things get hairy.

In September, Congress voted to spend something like $525 billion to keep the government running until late March – a bump of about $8 billion over the previous six months. Lawmakers didn't need to address the other two thirds of federal spending, "mandatory" entitlement programs that were designed to rise in perpetuity.

The members who voted "aye" on the "continuing resolution" did so knowing that the outlays would outrun the current debt limit. As the world's largest debtor, the federal government has to borrow something beyond a quarter of everything it spends.

Now, though, the government has actually exhausted its borrowing power and, without a hike in the credit limit, would have to slash spending dramatically – all the way back to 2008 levels.

While 2008 levels don't sound too bad at first blush, the cost of those "mandatory" programs and the cost of servicing the debt already accrued has increased dramatically in the past four years.

In rough terms, the government spends about $250 billion a month. Of that, $36 billion is to pay off the existing $16.4 trillion in debt – about $8.3 billion a month more than in 2008.

By deciding to spend without budgeting, Democrats have left themselves wide open to the current showdown.

Rather than having the politically dangerous regular budget process, the Obama Democrats have opted for straight spending bills for most of the president's first term.

When a budget is completed, as the rules require, hawks and spenders have to reach some agreement about how much to spend and tax and borrow. Deals are made and politically painful votes are cast.

Obama, who is a big believer in more spending to keep the economy afloat, was not interested in seeing cuts in an election year and Senate Democrats, concerned about protecting their majority, were not inclined to be profiles in political courage.

And in 2011 and 2010 there were similar political pressures and, well, a desire to not face the nasty business of voting to borrow another $1 trillion. The economic emergency of the recession that followed the Panic of 2008 gave way seamlessly to the political calculations of 2012.

But by leaving the borrowing limit for another day, the Obama Democrats have empowered the small-government budget hawks in the House to make fresh demands for cuts in order to raise debt ceiling.

As a result, the government is dangling at the brink of what Democrats call "default on our obligations" and Republicans call "partial government shutdown."

Whatever you call it, it would be stark stuff. By the time the "mandatory" programs and interest payments were done and the military was funded to the degree necessary to protect the nation there wouldn't be much left over. Whatever you think of John Maynard Keynes, sucking that much money out of the economy all at once would be a blow.

Add to that the full-throttle freak-out of creditors and investors who wondered what in the name of Sam Rayburn was going on in Washington, and you could see some serious disruptions, including the start of a worldwide recession.

Obama was cross and crabby at the final press conference of his first term, scowling in exasperation at Republicans who want to use the debt limit as leverage.

But it was the political calculation by Democrats to spend without budgeting – to avoid the process by which the pleasure of spending and pain of borrowing and taxing are intertwined – that has left the president in this bind.

For the conservatives who watch the nation hurtling toward fiscal oblivion, now is a better time to take the medicine and force reform than to shuffle along for another year or two or four without making big changes.

Liberals are proud that Obama risked his re-election to pass an unpopular new health-insurance entitlement program. Conservatives are looking for similar audacity from their representatives in Congress when it comes to debt and spending.

And it is the Obama Democrats who have given them the chance.

And Now, A Word From Charles

"If we didn't do hypocrisy here every night we would probably have a three-minute panel every night.  It is quite staggering. It's not just that [President Obama] changed his position [on the debt limit], but the way he heaps opprobrium on the people who are saying today exactly what he said seven years ago."  

-- Charles Krauthammer on "Special Report with Bret Baier."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/15/crabby-obama-caught-in-budget-trap/?intcmp=related#ixzz2I7iDgzuS

[Warph]

Can You Guess How Many Straw Man Arguments Were in Obama's Speech?

President Obama has an, at times, well-deserved reputation for delivering his speeches well. Certainly, the president made an impression today when he delivered his second inaugural address calling for a bolder, more expansive government that would be committed increasingly to the principles of liberalism, with characteristic soaring rhetoric.

Unfortunately, another characteristic was also in evidence in Obama's speech: namely, his tendency to argue against positions that nobody holds (and by extension, to mischaracterize his opponents' views so as to make them easier to argue against). In logic, this unfortunate tendency is referred to as a *"straw man fallacy" and it was well-worn in President Obama's speech today – so well-worn that at times, he seemed to cough up a new straw man fallacy with every sentence. How many of these arguments in bad faith did the President use? Read on as we list each one and explain their fallacious nature.

*A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.



Straw Man #1:
Obuma: "For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias."

The President's line about muskets and militias is a rhetorical flourish more than an argument, but the first part of this line is an obvious straw man. No one in the current political climate is arguing for a complete dissolution of government power such that only the American people as a collective would be responsible for defending the country or performing any other task. Rather, the question is how much responsibility should be left to private citizens. Saying "private citizens cannot handle all responsibilities" is not the same as saying "private citizens cannot handle any responsibility at all."


Straw Man #2:
Obuma: "No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores."

Like the first straw man, this one argues against something which is obviously false, and which no one believes. A single, individual person obviously cannot do all of this alone, but again, that does not imply that if someone cannot do something alone, the government must step in and do it for them. For instance, an architect cannot build a skyscraper alone. He needs laborers, engineers, and other people. But saying he can't do this alone is not the same thing as saying that private citizens cannot cooperatively agree to do this without help from the government.


Straw Man #3:
Obuma "We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn."

No one is proposing completely giving up caring for older generations, nor is anyone proposing completely ignoring young people's needs. The question is how much government can afford to spend on each. More to the point, no one on either side is proposing complete abolition of programs that help the elderly or the disabled.


Straw Man #4:
Obuma: "We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few."

This particular straw man presumably is meant to apply to income inequality. At least, that's the only public policy issue that this author can see it relating to. However, as with the others, it is a misreading of people who argue against greater income equality. For one thing, freedom and happiness are not necessarily the same as money, and luck is not the only thing that makes a person wealthy. Moreover, people who argue that income inequality is not necessarily a problem are not defending the idea that only a few can be wealthy, which is a question of income mobility, not equality.


Straw Man #5:
Obuma: "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms."

This straw man, which deals with global warming, is actually two fallacies in one. It is a straw man because no one believes they can avoid the impact of natural disasters completely, and it also begs the question by assuming that solving global warming will solve the problem of fires, drought and storms, while simultaneously trying to prove that by solving global warming, natural disasters will be lessened.


Straw Man #6:
Obuma: "We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war."

The President's critics on national security do not believe in perpetual war. They may believe in seeing some wars through to their conclusion, or starting other wars out of necessity, but none of them believes in perpetual war for its own sake.


Straw Man #7:
Obuma: "For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts."

People arguing against bills such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which claim to be devoted to ensuring equal pay for women, often do so because they are concerned that these laws give trial lawyers too much of an excuse to sue, not because they believe women should be underpaid.


Straw Man #8:
Obuma: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

Again, there are no mainstream political figures who believe that gays should be unequal before the law. In fact, gays enjoy all the same constitutional protections as straight people. The question of whether the right to marriage is one of those constitutional protections, however, is an unresolved question, though the Supreme Court may resolve it later this year. This straw man also assumes that the only function of marriage is to facilitate love. That is certainly one view, but it is not one that all critics of gay marriage subscribe to, and thus assuming that they oppose gay marriage out of opposition to love is a straw man.


Straw Man #9:
Obuma: "Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity."

Shutting off immigration completely is not a policy proposal being offered. What is being argued about is the question of what to do with people who immigrated to the US in contradiction to its laws.


Straw Man #10:
Obuma: "Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness."

This is obviously true, but is also a straw man because no one believes that following a blueprint for governance requires the people following that blueprint to make all the same lifestyle choices. This is not even an argument that constitutional originalists on the Supreme Court advance. The President is arguing against a position that is not held by his critics.

That's ten straw men in slightly under 20 minutes. In other words, one logical fallacy every 2 minutes, on average.

[Warph]

Government Gone Wild:  Land of The Freebies, Home of the Enslaved

Type this sentence into Google:

"How do I qualify" ..... and see what comes up.

Top 10:

how do i qualify for food stamps

how do i qualify for medicaid

how do i qualify for unemployment

how do i qualify for earned income credit

how do i qualify for section 8

how do i qualify for disability

how do i qualify for a pell grant

how do i qualify for medicare........

This is just the start of one of the most striking videos this year about government spending, entitlements, and the dependent population.  Government Gone Wild has brought forth statistics that can't be denied or mischaracterized by the politicians who have created them.  A larger and larger percentage of our citizens pay nothing for the benefits they receive, and they become incentivized to stay poor and depend on our government for their needs.

•1 out of 3 U.S. households have a member receiving food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare, or medicaid.
The USDA is paying for marketing to encourage more people to become food stamp recipients.  One state received a $5 million bonus for adding more people to their system.  Hard-working American's tax dollars are being spent on advertising to people who didn't think they needed food stamps.

For every $1 in taxes that the lowest income Americans pay, they will receive an average of $10 in federal spending benefits..a ten-fold return.

Percentage of Americans paying ZERO federal income taxes during Presidents' tenures:
•19%:  Ronald Reagan
•25%:  BillClinton
•30%:  George W Bush
•47%:  Barack Obama

144,000,000 Americans have "no skin in the game"–they pay no federal income taxes.  Half of America's citizens' tax bills are being paid by the other half of America.  At a certain point, when there are more parasites than the host can support, it leaves them behind or it dies.  The momentum and direction of this country are leaning toward a majority populace that expects an ever-shrinking pool of taxpayers to support their every need.  The momentum must be stopped.

[Warph]

The Democratic Disgrace...

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-democratic-disgrace/


Every job has a minimum requirement. The absolute very least that anyone can do without being considered a complete and utter failure.

The minimum requirement for a Commander-in-Chief is to stick around when an American diplomatic mission is under fire. Obama flunked even this minimal requirement by going to sleep and then flying off for a fundraiser in Vegas.

The minimum requirement for a Secretary of State is to at least pretend to care why such an attack took place. Hillary Clinton failed that minimum requirement by declaring that it didn't matter why the attack happened.

The minimum requirement for a Vice President is to avoid becoming a national embarrassment. Biden has failed miserably at that.

John Kerry joins a Cabinet full of washed-up and scandal-prone figures like Attorney General Eric Holder, whose career should have ended after his role in the Clinton Administration's Marc Rich pardon scandal, and Arne Duncan, who was rewarded for his failure to reform Chicago schools with the highest education job in the country.  Then there's Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius who violated the Hatch Act by campaigning at a government event.

[Warph]

Confirmed: Obama Made No Calls, Took No Action During Benghazi Attack

By Guy Benson
2/15/2013

Last week, Lindsey Graham's unrelenting line of questioning compelled Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to confirm under oath that not a single military asset was deployed to help rescue besieged US personnel in the course of a terrorist raid in Benghazi, Libya. The September 11, 2012 attack lasted nearly eight hours, during which four Americans died, including our sitting ambassador. Multiple requests for increased security in the weeks and months leading up to the massacre were denied. Urgent warnings that the Benghazi consulate couldn't withstand a sustained attack were ignored. (The compound didn't even meet minimum security standards for American diplomatic outposts anywhere in the world). An eleventh-hour cable accurately predicting an imminent attack resulted in...nothing. Explicit calls for help during the prolonged raid went unheeded amidst a flurry of "stand down" orders. One of many lingering questions regarding this outrageous episode is what our Commander-in-Chief was doing throughout the ordeal, during which America's real-time response was evidently paralyzed by chaotic indecision. Yesterday, the White House finally shed some light on this question by releasing a letter describing what President Obama was not doing as American diplomats' lives hung in the balance:

President Obama didn't make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday. "During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama's defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released. Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster. The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And there's this, which (a) re-confirms what we've known for some time, and (b) begs the question of why the administration approved false talking points for public consumption:
Mr. Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

Who conceived of the false talking points and why were they employed at all, let alone for days? Why were requests for security upgrades repeatedly turned down, especially since our intelligence knew of at least ten active jihadi groups operating in Benghazi at the time? If the Commander-in-Chief wasn't in contact with his top people throughout the raid, and if he wasn't ordering the full might of the United States military into motion to protect the lives of our diplomats (which he's claimed is his "number one" priority), what was he doing over those eight hours? Our only clue is a campaign rally in Las Vegas the next day, which the president attended as scheduled -- having blown off another daily intelligence briefing, which was a habitual occurrence. That these questions have not been sufficiently answered -- or even asked, in some cases -- is less a product of masterful White House stonewalling as it is a profoundly vexing indictment of our media.

SEN. GRAHAM: Are you surprised that the president of the United States never called you, Secretary Panetta, and say, 'how's it going?'

SEC. PANETTA: I — you know, normally in these situations –

SEN. GRAHAM: Did he know the level of threat that –

SEC. PANETTA: Let — well, let me finish the answer. We were deploying the forces. He knew we were deploying the forces. He was being kept updated –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I hate to interrupt you, but I got limited time. We didn't deploy any forces. Did you call him back — wait a minute –

SEC. PANETTA: No, but the event — the event was over by the time we got –

SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, you didn't know how long the attack would last. Did you ever call him and say, Mr. President, it looks like we don't have anything to get there anytime soon?

SEC. PANETTA: The event was over before we could move any assets.

SEN. GRAHAM: It lasted almost eight hours. And my question to you is during that eight-hour period, did the president show any curiosity about how's this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people? Did he ever make that phone call?

SEC. PANETTA: Look, there is no question in my mind that the president of the United States was concerned about American lives and, frankly, all of us were concerned about American lives.

SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, I don't believe that's a credible statement if he never called and asked you, are we helping these people; what's happening to them?


Left unexplored was the reason for Obama's lack of interest and communication when he knew that American lives were in grave danger in the midst of a terrorist attack on 9/11.  Most of the damage occurred during the late afternoon and early evening hours (Eastern time) of September 11, so it's possible -- but unlikely -- that the president was sleeping.  I'd guess he was attending to his re-election campaign; he didn't alter his plans to attend a rally in Las Vegas on September 12, a day on which he astonishingly skipped yet another intelligence briefing.  Graham's interrogation was about much more than the president's shameful lack of curiosity, let alone leadership, throughout the crisis.  He also exposed the mismanagement and chaos among other high-level decision makers that reigned throughout the ordeal.  He methodically demolished Panetta's litany of excuses, which ranged from dubious to insulting.  Panetta claimed that the US government didn't have time to deploy any resources to rescue the besieged Americans.  Graham noted that the attack lasted nearly eight hours.  Panetta tried to assert that the military only could have helped if they'd had boots on the ground before the attack.  Graham correctly called that a grievous violation of the military's "we've got your back" principle.  Panetta, covering for the president, said that Obama was made aware that the Pentagon was deploying forces to aid our diplomats.  An incredulous Graham reminded him of Gen. Dempsey's testimony that no forces were deployed:

GRAHAM: My question is, did anybody leave any base anywhere to go to the aid of the people who were under attack in Benghazi, Libya before the attack ended.

DEMPSEY: No, because the attack ended before we could get off the ground.

Earlier in the hearings, Sen. McCain helped establish that at no time did the State Department request military help from the Pentagon.  Why not?  And what are we to make of CBS News' report that rescue teams were told to prepare, then stand down, throughout the night?  Four Americans, including a sitting Ambassador, were left to die in an unprotected consulate in a jihadist hotbed, and we still don't know why.  Nor do we know what the the Commander-In-Chief was doing as the slaughter transpired.

[Warph]

Obama Fiddled....



....while Benghazi burned ... and an election approached.

By Andrew B. Wilson on 2.15.13


The late Ted Kennedy became known as "the Hero of Chappaquiddick" for leaving a young lady to die after accidentally driving his car off a bridge on the night of July 18, 1969. Kennedy, who swam free, said nothing to police until 10 a.m. the following day.

In the subsequent inquest, John Farrar, a professional diver and the captain of the Edgartown Fire Rescue unit on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, discovered the body of Mary Jo Kopechne in the well of the backseat of the overturned and submerged car. He said in his testimony:

It looked as if she were holding herself up to get a last breath of air. It was a consciously assumed position.... She didn't drown. She died of suffocation in her own air void. It took her at least three or four hours to die. I could have had her out of that car twenty-five minutes after I had the call. But he (Ted Kennedy) didn't call.

President Barack Obama deserves similar obloquy as "the Commander-in-Chief who went AWOL" on September 12, 2012 — during the eight-hour siege in which heavily-armed terrorists burnt the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

To be sure, there are major differences between the two events. Unlike Kennedy, the president did not directly endanger the life or lives of others. Like Kennedy, however, he went missing when he could have tried to mount a rescue mission, or at least weighed the options and seriously considered doing so.

If nothing else, Obama is guilty of excessive passivity ... indeed, dereliction of duty ... on the night of Sept. 11, 2012. And so, too, were others high in the administration, including three outgoing members — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey — along with the Chief of Naval Operations (responsible for the deployment of FAST anti-terrorist teams), and the head of the Special Operations Command.

Though the details were spare, after months of stonewalling by the Obama administration, the testimony given by Secretary Panetta and Gen. Dempsey late last week was dramatic.

They told how they had spent a half hour meeting with the president on Sept. 11 at 5 p.m. Washington time briefing him on the mass demonstration at the Egyptian embassy and the beginning of an all-out attack (then 90 minutes old) on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

Through their testimony, we learned of the strange indifference of the president to the events that were unfolding on this obviously historic date for America and its sworn enemies (the eleventh anniversary of Nine Eleven 2001). According to Panetta, the president told them that the response to the attack was "up to them." And that was it: According to Panetta and the general, they had no further contact with the president (or, for that matter, Secretary Clinton) the rest of the evening or night.

Two other important details from the Panetta and Dempsey testimony: They knew full well that it was a terrorist attack. Despite that, neither the president nor they felt compelled to reestablish contact over the next several hours. There were no phone calls from the president to the defense secretary to check up on the situation later that evening or night. Nor did he or Dempsey communicate with Clinton.

None of this seemed important enough for any of the principals — starting with the president — to think of calling for brainstorming and battle planning in the White House Situation Room.

A month and a half after the attack (and a couple of weeks before the Nov. 6 election), Panetta claimed:

The basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having real-time information about what's taking place.... And as a result of not having that kind of information ... (we) felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.

But that is far from being any kind of a basic principle. In this case, the "fog of war" seems to have much less of a factor than the deliberately contrived "fog of cover-up." As George H. Wittman described in a detailed article on this page yesterday, there were, in fact, a number of military options available that could have been used to deliver potentially decisive military force to the besieged embassy within a matter of a few hours. Many other experts in addition to Wittman have made the same point.

Nevertheless, the Obama administrative slept — or, if it stayed awake, it was for a completely different purpose than saving American lives far away from home: It was to save their own necks and reputations over the course of the upcoming election.

There were two other notable events that transpired on Sept. 11, 2012.

First was a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo (and hence from a unit of the State Department), which was made after thousands of Egyptian protesters earlier in the day had stormed the embassy and torn down the U.S. flag — replacing it with a black flag inscribed with the Muslim professions of faith: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet." The statement said:

The U.S. Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by a misguided individual to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.... Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions of those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others (emphasis added).

Among other people who took objection to that was Mitt Romney, who issued a statement of his own that went out on the evening of Sept. 11 (before anyone knew of the full extent of the calamity in Benghazi) saying:

I'm outraged by the attacks on diplomatic on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.... It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attack.

Then came the next episode in the story — with the Obama administration's whole-hearted embrace of the idea enunciated by the embassy in Cairo — that an obscure and indeed all-but- unknown film-maker in California had caused all the trouble by making a short and (to Muslims) blasphemous film about Mohammed — and that Romney should be attacked for "politicizing" the issue in the heat of a U.S. presidential election.

In the speech that Obama gave the next morning in the Rose Garden, with Hilary Clinton at his side, Obama denounced "acts of terror" only in general terms and alluded to the video, echoing the U.S. embassy in Cairo in saying: "Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts."

Oh, yes — the video did it.

After the Rose Garden appearance, Obama jetted off to Las Vegas and points west for fund-raisers and to meet with Hollywood pals. On Sept. 18 he was all smiles in appearing for a cream-puff interview on the David Letterman show where the two of them pulled long faces for only moment or two in consideration of the dead Americans in Benghazi.

It was on Sept. 16 that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice made her now-notorious round of appearances on Sunday talk shows again blaming the deaths in Benghazi on the "Innocence of Mohammed" video. In reference to Benghazi, she told ABC"s Jake Tapper on "This Week":

Our best current assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a pre-mediated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to a very offensive video that was disseminated.

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons.... And it then evolved from there.

Obviously, the president and his top national security advisers did not want to deviate from his often stated boast that "Bin Laden was dead" and Al Qaeda was "on the run" following the killing of Osama bin Laden. Still less did they want to reveal that he and his team failed even to recognize what was going in the Middle East as a genuine crisis.

It was all a lie — or the grossest self-deception.

But they got away with it.

President Obama and his team fiddled...



....while Benghazi burned and they focused on winning the Nov. 6 election.