Hillary's Haunting Past

Freedom's Safest Place

"13 Hours" Opened Thursday Night. Why Haven't You Seen it Yet?

13 Hours, as most of you know, is the true story of a handful of individuals who showed uncommon bravery in the face of a colossal security clusterflock*, at a US diplomatic outpost, after the fall of Qaddafi in Libya. The movie doesn't go into the politics, most of which consisted in the (almost?) criminal refusal on behalf of the State Department to provide adequate security to, as the opening credits note, one of the twelve most dangerous spots on the planet.

If you listen closely, you can hear the faint voice of Barack Obama blathering about the wonderful opportunities for the Libyan people now that Qaddafi had been overthrown. Mercifully, I did not see any pictures of Hillary or hear the dreaded cackle, which, now that I think of it, might have sent their attackers fleeing in fear at the sound of it.

The story starts with the arrival of Jack Silva, played by The Office's John Krasinski**. A tense and potentially deadly situation arises on the streets of Benghazi before they can even reach the compound. Welcome to Benghazi! Jack is not an FNG***, as he has worked with some of the team in years past.

The CIA station chief "Bob", is portrayed as a snot nosed, condescending, officious prick who treats his security detail, mostly former Navy SEALS, as rent-a-cops. Not surprisingly, the former CIA station chief for Benghazi has said this is all 'baloney', but then, if even a fraction of it were true, I would vehemently deny it, too. Whose word are you going to trust? His, or the three men who risked their lives to save his bacon? Me, too.

The movie shows the very human side of these operators: interactions with their wives and kids, albeit long distance, the boredom, the bureaucracy, and when the balloon goes up, their professionalism and willingness to die for their friends and even some complete strangers, because that's what they signed up for.

The movie is well paced and suspenseful, and at times, like "24", gives the sense of taking place in real time. The suspense is heightened in that the bad guys do not wear any uniform or insignia and therefore look like anyone else. These men know all too well the consequences of shooting a "friendly", therefore you literally cannot tell friend from foe until they start shooting at you.

The battle scenes are intense and the down time in between them are very revealing of these men's character.The requests for help that go unanswered, surprising in the face of the number of people actually ready to respond, may cause one to pause.

I highly recommend this movie. The movie is accurate, according to (most of) those who were there. Director Michael Bay does the script, the story, and the heroes behind them justice. One caveat, you may not be able to leave the theater with a dry eye. Two ladies who saw the movie before I did, Tweeted: There was only one word when we left the theater: Speechless.

Five out of five stars.

*Hey! We are still PG-13 here!  But if that kind of language offends you, wait until 13 Hours comes out on network TV, and read the book while you wait. The language is not excessive, but realistic.
**Don't let that concern you. I was never a fan of The Office, but his acting is first rate here. He gives a very credible performance, showing wide range.
***F'ing New Guy, for the uninitiated

Benghazi "Rescue Interrupted" -Sharyl Attkisson

The Most Interesting Liar in the World - Déjà vu

My Déjà VU meter is pegged!

Bonus:

Deep Thoughts

There, Hillary! Fixed it For You!

Hillary Clinton and the Emails of Doom

...or, No Sequel for Hillary!



My friend Adrienne, over at Adrienne's Corner, put up a post minimizing the importance of Hillary's email in flagrante delicto, characterizing it as a "tempest in a teapot". I'm sure that plenty on the Left would love for us to believe this, and have in the meantime, come up with some of the lamest excuses, defenses and doublespeak I have ever heard from a liberal, bar none.

Surprisingly, though a number of folks on the Left are outraged by her conduct as well. Let's examine (and shred) some of the arguments put forth on Hillary's behalf.

Her emails were public (because she sent them out publicly ) Lannie Davis, long time Clinton apologist, tried to make the argument that Hillary had made her emails public because she sent out so many of them publicly. Let's call this the "iceberg defense". As long as you can see part of it, just assume you've seen it all!

what she did was open. She sent these e-mails to thousands of people with that e-mail address. So there's no intent to hide...

This is absurd on the face. Any email she sent to you is not necessarily public to me. The fact that thousands of people may have received emails from Hillary's account, means the account may have been public, but not the emails. Apples and Orangemen. The fact that she sent out thousands of emails is irrelevant unless all of them are archived with the government so that they can be searched, and if need be, subpoenaed. If she sent 1,000 emails to Kim Kardashian and 20 to Vladimir Putin, turning over all the Kardashian emails doesn't mean her email was "public". They are public when the public has access to them all, according to prevailing law. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was passed because some government officials had to be forced by law to turn certain documents that should have been part of the public record, over to 'we the people'. But, FOIA doesn't give you access to Hillary's private server, therefore the original documents are in fact being hidden away from the public who owns them.

Any possibility that there are emails from Ambassador Chris Stevens to his boss and good friend Hillary Clinton, telling her of deteriorating conditions, requesting more protection for the compound at Benghazi? Emails from Hillary to Chris telling him to pound sand?? It would be most unusual if there weren't.

Any emails to Saudi Arabia around the time the Saudis gave $25 Million to the Clinton Foundation? From them? Any veiled (pun intended) hints of a quid pro quo?

No Independent Legal Authority This from former alleged conservative turned conservative inquisitioner David Brock. He says the NYT had 'no independent legal authority' to say that Hillary broke any law. This sounds a little bit like the Al Gore's fundraising excuse, back in 1996, when the Clintons were looking at a different controversy in accepting money from foreign governments. "There is no controlling legal authority",was what the vice president said. David Brock notwithstanding, there was a 2009 regulation

"agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic email messages using a system not operated by the agency, must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system."

Hillary's house is NOT in an appropriate agency record keeping system.

The State Dept manual on foreign affairs stated that employees "must use a secure, department approved computer system". Who, dear Hillary, aside from yourself, in your department approved your personal system? Craig Livingston*? Was there a tape back up run by Rose Mary Woods??**


False equivalence "Hillary did nothing wrong, everybody has a private email account!" Everyone may have a belly button, too, but that's equally irrelevant. Having an additional email account to one's government account is not unusual for public officials. In fact, Congressmen are forbidden by law to use their gov't email for fund raising or campaign events, so they use private accounts for those, as liberals are pointing out with glee. "See? See? Congressman Hornblatt has a private email and it's RIGHT ON HIS BUSINESS CARD!!!"***  However, not one of them uses a private account exclusively for conducting government business. That's a distinction that falls solely to Hillary Diane Rodham Milhous Clinton.

In fact, you do remember the faux outrage over the suggestion that a Republican governor may have conducted some government business on a private email account? Romney? Palin?? "What were they trying to hide???" What if they had conducted ALL of their communications on a private email server, say one called GOP.org? Would the lynching be public or would they be flayed and boiled in oil first? Can I get even a small fraction of the outrage there, for one of the highest office holders in the land, who used a private email account EXCLUSIVELY for all her government business, none of it properly archived in government agencies?

"Bush did it" in 2007, something something, missing emails, something something, Bush and Cheney did it, too! More false equivalence. Whatever Bush and Cheney did, you can be 100% certain that Bush did not exclusively conduct government business on private email, with some private server in Crawford, Texas.
You can also be 100% certain that Bush was not soliciting cash for any private eponymous foundation and arranging any quid pro quos for infusions of cash to foreign governments.

Hillary turned over 55,000 emails. That's a LOT! State Dept spokesperson Marie Harf may be easily impressed with large numbers. And shiny objects. Actually, it's 55,000 pages of documents. Out of how many emails? Ever get a highly detailed email or one with attachments that ran more than one page? Me too.

Even if that were 99.999% of the government documents generated, it would not be enough. If there were 55,002 emails she sent, and she conveniently neglected to hand over two incriminating ones, it circumvents both the spirit and the intention of the law, and the record is incomplete. Short of giving all the servers to the government for a forensic evaluation, there cannot be full compliance. The Clintons sending out copies of however many emails they want is not evidence that the email was totally or properly archived. The servers need to be turned over. Every document she authored as Secretary of State needs to be properly archived. This is part of the history of this country and this government. Those emails do not belong to Hillary.

The Clintons should turn over all the servers to an impartial third party or court, to separate the personal from the professional, so that the professional can be archived and searchable. Until then, one can never know if there has been a full compliance with the law.

"At that time, there was no time requirement. Now there is."  Again, the lovely Ms. Harf strains credulity. Even though there was not a 60 day requirement, as I believe is the case today, is it reasonable to assume that Hillary was in compliance if after two years, she only turns documents over after they were subpoenaed?
If a politician generates hard copy documents on their own stationery, are they entitled to store them in their garage until such time as someone compels them to be delivered?

"And she has given everything, according to her staff, to the State Dept." 

Key words being "according to her staff".

But! But! There's a lot of private information on them too! All of the Clintons' private emails! This is just a "fishing expedition" by Republicans! Gosh. Actions have consequences! Even Hillary's. No one made Hillary set up her own private email servers. If she had wanted to keep her personal email separate from those emails which properly are the property of the people of the United States, then the "smartest woman in the world" should have figured out to keep her personal emails on her private servers and emails dealing with the office of the Secretary of State should have been archived on government servers from the very beginning. Period.

National Security Risk We know that Hillary's email was hacked. What we don't know is how many times and by whom? A hacker who goes by the name of guccifer hacked Hillary's email and published a number of them. But, if a common everyday garden variety hacker could hack Hillary's email, how about teams of hackers from foreign governments? Could a foreign government or governments have hacked Hillary's email for confidential or even classified information? We don't know. That's one of the reason why the government needs to conduct a forensic search of her private servers.

The thought occurred to me, given the insecurity of Clintonemail, that if a foreign government or governments had hacked her account, they would have had the inside scoop, play by play of US foreign policy, for possibly as many years as she was Sec State. Imagine the foreign policy failures of the last six years. What if Barack Obama is not the bumbling, fumbling incompetent we've come to know and love. What if the reason he was so easily thwarted by Putin in the Ukraine, by Bashar al-Assad ignoring his red lines, by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the mad mullahs of Iran was not because he was a foreign policy noob, but because there was a gigantic hole in his secure communications, and nations unfriendly towards the US were listening in?

Did Hillary ever in her entire tenure as Secretary of State send a classified document via email? Not inconceivable, in fact, probable. That means at least for a time, that document was stored on whatever device she was using, her Blackberry, perhaps, desktop or laptop and a copy of it was created (illegally) on the server in her Chappaqua home. How is this any different than the felony that Gen. Petraeus was charged with in having classified documents in an unsecure location. Because Petraeus brought his in notebooks and Hillary brought hers in "1"s and "0"s?

But! But! Secret Service Agents surrounded the server in her house Physically, maybe. But secure against hacking? See: Guccifer. Oh, and did I mention it's against the law? Was the Secret Service even aware the servers were there, possibly with classified information on them, much less needing protection against intruders? Knowing the Clintons, I rather doubt it. Was her webmaster a frequent visitor at the house? Was it by any chance Craig Livingston??

The law changed after Hillary left office True. But that doesn't mean that many of the same requirements weren't in place before the law changed. The law became more specific, but the underlying principles of archiving official US mail in US government agencies, via whatever medium, did not change.

Questionable foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation That's what put everyone onto the missing emails in the first place. It seems that the Clintons have been accepting tons and tons of money from foreign governments, laundering it, er benevolently distributing it, after passing through the sticky fingers of Bill and Hil, who spent about a million dollars just on transportation last year, even providing first class tickets for an actress and her dog to some such "charitable" event.  The Clintons continue to live like kings and queens, filtering millions through their charitable organization (charity apparently begins at home!), along with the millions of dollars of government pensions, presidential expenses and speaking fees.

We do know that the State Dept. sent literally billions of dollars to the government of Haiti. And in 2012, the government of Haiti gave a gold mining permit to Hillary's brother, the first one coincidentally, issued in 50 years. Quid pro quo, anyone? Maybe having a record of correspondence between the Secretary of State, or the Clinton foundation (or both) and the government of Haiti might tell a tale!

How many other deals conducted by the State Dept may have been preceded or closely followed by "contributions" to the Clinton Foundation? Yet another reason, if not the primary reason, to keep their correspondence secret and unsearchable?

Put the shoe on the other foot Forget all of the arguments you've heard to date. Now suppose the identical circumstances exist, but the official in question was George Bush, Sarah Palin, or Dick Cheney, or even...Richard Nixon?  If they told you, "Look, I've given you all the pertinent emails, because I said I've given you all the emails. Trust me!" At this point, does anyone, however so gullible, say, "Oh, well! If you say so, it must be true. Nevermind!"

Guilt by association... What Charles Krauthammer refers to as "Early Onset Clinton Fatigue", is Hillary's close association with...Bill and Hillary! As bad as the 'dialing for dollars' of the Clinton Foundation, the apparent quid pro quos of Hillary's State Dept, with a strong suspicion of dialing for dollars for the Clinton Foundation, the missing emails and possible cover up of Benghazi, and perhaps even criminal enterprises, the longer Hillary's integrity stands in question, the more apparent it is, that she does not have any! This whole sordid affair has stirred up Clinton scandals long forgotten, but never resolved. Cattle futures? Rose Law firm records? Travelgate? Whitewater? FBI files?  Every shady deal that Hillary ever stuck her fingers into is now coming back to haunt her, like King Hamlet's ghost. "Out, out, damned servers!", she shrieks.

Speaking of self inflicted wounds, how does Hillary ever completely convince anyone, other than the Kool-Aid drenched, low information voters, that she has indeed turned over all official emails?  Having been the sole custodian of her emails, both good and bad for six years, how could any outsider know how many emails, or servers that might be incriminating that are not turned over? Do you ask the fox how many chickens were originally in the henhouse? Would you believe him? Exactly how many emails were there? How long is a rope?

Given the Clintons' long and checkered past, can anyone believe that they a) never did anything even questionably unethical, or b) they haven't tried to cover it up, ala the Rose Law firm billing records. Or Filegate or travelgate or who hired Craig Livingston...

Bottom Line for the Drama Queen of Chappaqua  Hillary is sticking to the typical Clinton playbook: dribble out a little information and then hunker down until things hopefully quiet down, then, it's "old news". But this is, I'm convinced, the beginning of the end of Hillary's political career. I'd been thinking for a little while now that Hillary was just being coy about running for President, because, if she's a potential or viable candidate, she's courted by media outlets, her speeches command more money, her influence carries more weight. All of this translates into cash. And then, there's her ego, but...follow the money!

After Hillary makes it clear she is not running, she's yesterday's news. Period.  Her influence shrinks, her speeches aren't as exciting (or expensive). No one is quite so eager to purchase access to citizen Clinton as they might to candidate Clinton, with a hope of being President Clinton. The media would turn its eye to actual candidates, leaving Hillary in the dustbin of history, to spend the rest of her life to knitting booties for the grandkids and making sweet, sweet love to Billy Jeff.****

Her emails regarding Benghazi have already been subpoenaed.  It's just a matter of time.

Stick a fork in her, she's done.


* Craig Livingston, employed by the Clintons at the time of the FBI file scandal, although no one would admit to having hired him

** Rose Mary Woods, Nixon's secretary, allegedly responsible for erasing 18 minutes of White House office recordings

***For brevity's sake, I did not use the prerequisite number of exclamation points generally used by the Left in such cases.

**** I know. Where's the mind bleach when you really need it?


Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

All Bets are Off

Has Obama Ever Made a "Gutsy Call"?

May, 2011. Remember what all of the MSM were saying about Obama's 'Gutsy Call' on killing bin Laden? Never mind the fact that bin Laden had been in our sights on three occasions before, when his adviser Valerie Jarrett, apparently the gutsier of the two, talked him out of taking any action at all. And never mind the fact that it is pretty inconceivable that any other US president would have done anything differently (well, except maybe take one of the three earlier shots!) But still, the airwaves were aflame with the meme that Obama had somehow made "a gutsy call".

Can anyone tell me of anything that Obama has done that even remotely resembled a "gutsy call"? Me neither.

Fast forward to September 11, 2012. It is the anniversary of an attack by Islamic terrorists on the United States. Obama and the Democrats had been pounding their chests at their convention that al Qaeda was on the run, "bin Laden is dead and Gm is alive". Word comes to the White House that our mission in Benghazi is under attack.

If Obama were given to, or even capable of, making gutsy calls...what was his 'gutsy call' on Benghazi? If he made one, to whom was it made? Exactly which actions were taken because of it? That's one of the reasons were having hearings. Either nobody knows or nobody's telling.

I personally have trouble believing that the same Obama who has dithered for nearly five and a half years over the no-brainer decision to allow the Keystone pipeline extension, was ever capable of making a "gutsy call" by himself.

Fast forward again to 2013. According to Obama:

...Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The images from this massacre are sickening: Men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas. Others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath. A father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk. On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off-limits — a crime against humanity, and a violation of the laws of war...

...When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied. The question now is what the United States of America, and the international community, is prepared to do about it. Because what happened to those people — to those children — is not only a violation of international law, it’s also a danger to our security. Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons."

When faced with making a "gutsy call" over a murderous tyrant, gassing women and children, committing crimes against humanity and violating international law, Obama made the gutsy call...to defer the decision to Congress. And then, when Vladimir Putin responded to the foolish utterances of his Secretary of State John Kerry, Obama made the 'gutsy call'...to do nothing.

The man who won't address grade schoolers without a teleprompter, can't or won't follow up on his campaign promises to close Guantanamo, didn't have the courage to walk out on Rev. Jeremiah Wright's hate tinged church, apparently hasn't made a gutsy call since he asked Michelle to marry him.

And that was just so she wouldn't eat him.

Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

Barry's 'Gutsy Call' on Benghazi

If it Wasn't for Faux Indignation, the Obama Admin Would Have None at All!

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, when watching the Sunday morning talking heads programs, but a favorite technique of politicians and other con men, is not to answer the question that is asked them, but to give the answer thtey have prepared to give, whether they are asked the question or not. Such, I noticed, was the case with the snot nosed, former spokesweasel for the National Security Council, lying weasel Tommy Vietor. (My apologies to weasels everywhere!)



Note what he says at 1:07

"We didn't know definitively that the ambassador was dead until late that evening".

So, we knew people were shooting at him and about thirty other people there at the compound, firing mortars at them and attacking them, but we didn't know until sometime that evening that he was dead dead. Why would we have send troops in there to support them before that?

Why indeed?

1:15

"We were unbelievably nervous, ah. about his safety, his well being and others in that facility."

So, it made you nervous? But, not nervous enough to actually do anything. That must be a great comfort for the surviving families of those four dead Americans to know!

1:51

"There is no way anyone knew definitively the motivations of the attackers that evening."

More navel gazing from the Rear Echelon Mother Weasels. Regardless of the "motivation", when the mortar shells started falling, the actions of the mob became crystal clear, and that is what the administration should have been concerned with.

I'd like to put little Tommy Vietor downrange for some gunnery practice, and give him a field telephone with two lines, ask him to call one or the other, when the mortar shells start to fall:

Line One connects him with someone who can stop the shelling.

Line Two connects him with someone who can explain the motivation behind the men who are firing the mortars.

and see which one he calls first? I'm sure he will want to definitively identify the motivation behind it before he takes any definitive actions. Right? Right??

Notice his biggest lie, via more misdirection at 10:14 :

"And I also think that this idea that the military had the capability to rescue those individuals but chose not to, I think is extremely unfair to the military."

"The military had the capability...but chose not to..." The military does indeed have the capability. Men train for it 24/7. I ask you, who in the world, other than this snot nosed, little creep, is suggesting that it was the military that chose not to send help, and not the civilians of the Obama administration who commanded them? Everything I've seen is that the military was ready, willing and able to run to the sound of the guns and at least attempt a rescue, and it was the weak kneed, lily livered, wet finger in the air, craven civilian politicians getting ready for a Vegas fund raiser who chose not to even try.

If liberals were not irony impaired, this dude Tommy V, whom Iowahawk suggested "was graduating from Huggies pull-ups to Spiderman Underoos" two years before, might notice the irony of claiming something is "extremely unfair to the military" the moment after something extremely unfair to the military, that no one else was saying, left his mouth.

Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

Between Two Ferns, Redux

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art


Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

If You Like Your Cherry Tree, You Can Keep It...

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Cross posted at LCR

Obama Will "Never Hesitate" to Use Force to Protect the American People

First of all, I'd like to thank President Obama for reminding us of the awful incident at Benghazi, even though he did not refer to it by name, and in the most oblique manner possible:

As Commander-in-Chief, I have used force when needed to protect the American people, and I will never hesitate to do so as long as I hold this office.

"I will never hesitate" to use force to protect the American people. If that is the case, Mr. President, exactly what happened in Benghazi?

Friends of the blog may remember that I have gone into detail of the tripartite nature of the Benghazi scandal, or three separate scandals, if you will. The first part was the administration ignoring requests for more security, ignoring the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi (unlike virtually every other Western mission or NGO), and ignoring the warnings and the obvious significance of the anniversary of 9/11. This represents at the very least a serious lack of judgment, which should not be rewarded with further employment or, dare we suggest, promotions?

No one has truly been held accountable for the lack of security at Benghazi, and these persons are, for the most part, still in a position to muck up any number of other things vital to our nation's interest.*

And before we deal with the second, which will be the thrust of this piece, let us consider the third part of the scandal, which is to say the cover up. There is no nice way to put this, but there must have been a conspiracy of sorts, within either the White House or the State Department, or both, to put forth the fairy tale (read: lie) about a video which incited the attack, when the administration knew full well from the very beginning, within minutes, that this was an organized terrorist attack, likely al Qaeda, not some spontaneous protest of an angry mob.

The fact that for weeks, spokespersons for the President, the Secretary of State and the President himself all repeated this lie, has never been fully investigated, nor has the responsible party or parties been held accountable for lying to the American public.

Which brings us to the second part, that of the Commander-in-Chief. One month after the attack at Benghazi, Obama made a rare statement on Benghazi, when pressed by a reporter:

“Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I’ve said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we’re going to find out exactly what happened, but what we’re also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.”

-Barack Obama, Oct. 26, 2012

"The minute I found out what was happening... I gave three very clear directives..." Well, that would certainly fit with a "never hesitate" scenario. But, Leon Panetta tells us that the President was notified within minutes of the start of the attack. So, if President Obama "did not hesitate" and "gave very clear directives" to those around him, why was no one sent to Benghazi to rescue or come to the aid of those dying in a terrorist attack? Obama was praised to the heavens for making a "gutsy call" on killing bin Laden. How do we know it was a "gutsy call"? That's what the sycophants in the media and his administration were repeating over and over. Aside from the fact that he was persuaded by Valerie Jarratt on three separate occasions NOT to make the 'gutsy call' to kill bin Laden, where is the evidence of a similar "gutsy call" on Benghazi? It was a "gutsy call" to stand up against the wishes of a female adviser, but not to save the lives of an untold number of American citizens?

I say "untold number", because too many people try to diminish the importance of what happened at Benghazi, because "only" four people died. But there were more than thirty people who came under attack at the embassy that night. Two men, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who did perish in the attack, rushed to the aid of the diplomatic mission, though they were not State Department security, and aided in the rescue of some 33 souls.

So, from his overstuffed chair in the Oval Office, when news of the attack first came to him, Obama didn't know that two former Navy Seals would rush to their defense. When news of the attack first came, no one knew how long the battle would last. But we have armed forces stationed around the world, trained for just an eventuality like this. Why were they not sent? And if some reports can be believed, some forces were sent and they were recalled and told to stand down. Was this your "gutsy call", Mr. President? To call off any attempt at aid or rescue, because it might be embarrassing to the political narrative you were selling with your re-election campaign?

Mr. President, as I have said before, it does not take a Congressional investigation for you to tell the American people what you yourself know to be fact. It only takes a spine. You said you gave "very clear directives"? To who? What precisely were those directives? And if they were not carried out, what punishment or discipline was ordered to those who either refused or failed?

Did you indeed not hesitate and give clear instructions, or did you dither as brave Americans lost their lives defending an outpost that you and the state Department couldn't be bothered with?

You owe an explanation to the families of those slain and to the American people why you apparently hesitated and made ready to attend a Vegas fundraiser rather than attend to the very serious business of protecting the American people that you were elected to do.

Be a man, for a change, Mr. President, and tell us what you did or didn't do that night. Or are you saving that for your next autobiography?




Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade








*A side note, since periodically some mindless, liberal drone (but I repeat myself) will try to put forth the argument that the reason there was inadequate security was because of those wascally Wepublicans, who constantly cut the budget. A few will go so far as to blame the "Republican" sequester that was proposed by Barack H. Obama.

This argument is patently false. The State Department has not argued a lack of funding for the lack of security, and a simple perusal of the State Department budget for that year will show millions of dollars spent on art in various embassies around the world. It wasn't that there wasn't any money, there just wasn't any competent, adult leadership in the organization

Platitudes-R-Us in Obama's Weak-ly Address

Saw Obama's weak-ly radio address over at American Power. The Bamboozler-in-Chief runs his mouth in campaign mode for four minutes in what sounds like a speech he could have given in 2008 (and probably did, except for the "phony scandals" part), as if he hasn't held the highest, most powerful office in the land for the past five years. Listen, if you have the stomach for it:


For Obama to insist on calling these scandals "phony", even as more and more evidence mounts in them, in hopes that they go away, would be slightly akin to you or I calling Obama a phony president and hoping he would go away. (The difference is, in the latter case, you or I would be correct, and Obama will go away as president no later than Jan. 2017)


Cross posted at LCR.

Obama Contemplates Prison Life

Obama striking yet another contemplative pose as he vacations in Africa.

First Photo Released of Obama Taking Charge During Benghazi Attack, 9/11/12

Here's a guy who gets photographed constantly. They take pictures of him, his shadow, his reflection, his halos...pictures of him in the situation room for bin Laden, pictures of him silhouetted against the sky thinking of Neil Armstrong, pictures of him golfing, thinking about Rosa Parks, thinking about the Newtown shooting, filling out his NCAA bracket, ad infinitum, why haven't we seen a single picture from what the Commander-in-Chief was doing 9/11/12, while Americans were fighting for their lives?

As a wise man once said, "How ever could we put these events into perspective without a picture of Obama to accompany it?"*


*Closed Captioning for the Humor Impaired: Sarcasm

(Inspired by a photo at Maggie's Notebook. Who may or may not have inspired this bit of Photoshop.)

"And Barack Obama is an Honorable Man!"*

Noble words, Mr. President! I've heard you utter them before...mostly trying to justify the passage of whatever ineffectual gun control legislation you're pushing. Do you really believe it, Mr. President? Did you believe it last September 11th. when you first got the word that our consulate in Benghazi was under attack?

"If there's even one thing we can do..." What exactly did you do, Mr. President?

"...if there's just one life we can save..." Was that your calculation on 9/11, Mr. President? "... pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe"?? Exactly which orders did you give that day as Commander-in-Chief?

"...we've got an obligation to try." Bingo! Now you know why so many people want to know what you did upon hearing that our consulate was under attack. Why they are insistent that you tell us. Most Americans know that we had an obligation to try. Not an option, an obligation. And nowhere does that obligation fall any heavier than on the Commander-in-chief.

So, do you really believe the words you spoke, the words you tweeted, Mr. President, or are they words...just words? Confession is good for the soul, Mr. Obama. Tell us what you did or didn't do that fateful day, September 11, 2012. It won't bring back the men who died, but their families and the American family deserve to know the truth of just exactly what you did to honor your obligation and American's obligation to those men.

If you could have saved just one life, you had an obligation to try. Hard to put it much plainer than that, sir. Now do the honorable thing, and not the political thing, for a change, for after all, you are an honorable man, right?

*With apologies to William Shakespeare

Cross posted at LCR.

Quote du jour

The earlier story better fit Obama’s modus operandi, which is to disappear in times of crisis. His brief legislative career was about voting “present” because he prefers to be absent when accountability knocks. . . . He is not a commander-in-chief for the battle but the armchair general of the postmortem.

-Roger Kimball