Whose side is Obama on?

What do you get when you cross a leftist presidential administration with a modern media complex intent on furthering its politically-correct vision of America? You get lots of incomprehensible, illogical stupidity.

But, as Charles Krauthammer recently wrote, much of this is not benign stupidity. Much of it is downright dangerous. Like making a decision to close Guantanamo for no good reason -- and without an alternative place to put many of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Or choosing to re-investigate the CIA for interrogations that were legally sanctioned by the Justice Department at the time they were carried out. Or creating a new and chilling environment that allows a radical Islamist at Fort Hood to contact Al Qaeda and make threatening presentations to other Army doctors without meaningful response. These nonsensical moves -- all in the name of political correctness and left-wing politics -- have already killed people.

How many more will die in the future?

Sadly, I believe it may be many. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has made the incomprehensible decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other al Qaeda planners of 9/11 in a civilian court in lower Manhattan -- near the very site where they perpetrated their act of war against America. Holder's decision came at the same time that he also ruled that the detainee responsible for the USS Cole bombing would face a military commission instead of a civilian trial. If it is good for the Cole bomber, why isn't it good enough for the perpetrators of 9/11?

And herein is the main issue: Obama and Holder don't see the 9/11 attack as an act of war. This reflects the Administration's belief that the kind of terrorism that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were essentially law enforcement issues, and should be handled in the normal system of justice that is available to every American -- and with all the rights and protections that go along with it. This is grist, of course, for the ACLU and other left-wing interest groups who want to see the U.S. cease and desist its aggressive tactics against the poor Islamic victims of U.S. imperialism. Holder has just given them a big fat bone: the final death blow to the "war on terror".

As the Wall Street Journal opines today:

Please spare us talk of the "rule of law." If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal "enemy combatants" captured since 9/11.

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren't a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday's decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

Oh, if only it were 1942 again -- when Obama's hero, Franklin Roosevelt, was able to move against America's enemies without the glare of the media covering every move. Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Biddle to carry out a swift form of justice at a time when America was at war -- a simple, effective process that protected America. The Germans were caught, tried and hung. No hand-wringing about their treatment as detainees. We understood a central fact: they were the enemy.

So Eric Holder, with the approval of President Obama, has chosen to return the 9/11 terrorists to the site of their crime, and with all the pomp and circumstance that will go with a show trial. F. Lee Bailey might even come out of retirement for this one. Can you imagine the spectacle? The opportunity for a legion of fame-seeking defense attorneys to gum up the works on this for years -- all the while parading this mass murderer in and out of court on a daily basis? How long before the sympathy factor sets in for this poor Muslim fundamentalist who was abused by his father and grew up in a world of American imperialist oppression?

The greater danger, of course, is the chance that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts are set free on procedural grounds for lack of evidence -- or because the defense lawyers put America and its interrogation techniques on trial.

This is a very real possibility -- and one I suspect that the Obama Administration understands well. So why would they take the risk? Is it because it is an opportunity to put a final nail in the coffin of the Bush Administration's "war on terror"? Wouldn't an acquittal on the basis of water-boarding be the ultimate victory for the anti-war left?

And the Journal concludes:

One certain outcome is that an open civilian trial will provide valuable information to terrorists across the world about American methods and intelligence. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissable, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the "blind cleric" Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan.

Terrorists also love a big stage, and none come bigger than New York. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, made his civilian trial a spectacle. Not even the best judge can entirely stop KSM and others from doing the same. And Mr. Holder has invited grave and needless security risks by tempting jihadists the world over to strike Manhattan while the trial is in session.

Just whose side is Obama on?

Revisionists diss Reagan in Berlin

As many of you know, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And do you know what? In all the hoopla surrounding the celebration yesterday -- not one person at the commemoration event in Berlin mentioned the role of Ronald Reagan. Can you imagine that?

Tom Brokaw -- like many commentators -- yesterday was quick to laud the role of Mikhail Gorbachev -- the darling of the media and the Nobel Committee. Gorbachev did, of course, play a pivotal role in changing the Soviet Union and opening it up to the West. But what most analysts have missed is that Gorbachev didn't get their alone. He didn't so much as jump as was pushed -- by a resolute Ronald Reagan who was unwilling to compromise with the Soviet state and kept up a relentless pressure that broke the back of the Soviet economic system.

Ronald Reagan deserves much of the credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall -- and don't let any revisionist historian tell you anything different. Reagan's force of personality -- the force of his conviction that the Soviet Union was a system that could not stand against the march of freedom -- made it clear to Gorbachev that the Soviets could never prevail. In the face of liberal pressure to "stand down" and to give in on Star Wars and other strategic initiatives, Reagan stood fast.

The result is history. Only today that history is told with a liberal bias that sees to minimize Reagan's pivotal role.

Don't believe it. Berlin owes a huge debt of gratitude to Reagan.

Here is Reagan's famous "Tear down this Wall" speech of 1987. What other leader would have the courage to make this speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate?

Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech in Berlin, June 12, 1987

Ft. Hood shows danger of political correctness

There is a pernicious disease in America that even the massive health care bill can't cure: Political correctness. We have become deaf, dumb and blind to obvious threats in our midst because we are too worried about offending some minority group. There is no question in my mind that when all the evidence is in, it will turn out that authorities knew about Malik Hasan and his radical views for months and did little to nothing about it.

Why? Because Hasan is a Muslim, and in the past eight years since 9/11, the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the ACLU and other liberal interest groups have bludgeoned the government into submission. The Democrats in Congress -- including Jack Murtha and others -- tried and convicted Marines for violence against innocent Muslims in Iraq in the press, and failed to apologize when charges were dismissed. The din to close Guantanamo was buttressed by dozens of lawsuits seeking redress for the U.S. government's abuse of detainees -- even as the abuse charges were found to be false and misleading. Civil society in the U.S. has been under attack -- not by terrorists but by their liberal defenders who see a government bogeyman behind every tree.

There is no question in my mind that the Fort Hood shooting is a terrorist attack and is a direct result of the U.S. Army and FBI using kid gloves to deal with a very real threat. To avoid an ugly confrontation, the FBI apparently didn't act quickly enough on information that Hasan had posted writings on an Islamic website that were supportive of suicide bombings against Americans, and may have had links to the Mosque that provided support to three of the 9/11 hijackers. But the FBI has been cowed into submission on this kind of thing, and in the absence of a "smoking gun" they are loathe to act.

Well, they have a smoking gun now, and 13 dead soldiers and civilians to show for it. So now they are all over it.

Too little, too late.

And how is the mainstream media covering this? With typical political correctness -- even going so far as to claiming that Hasan is the victim of Post Traumatic Sress Disorder (PTSD). The only problem with this analysis, of course, is that PTSD is for those who have actually served overseas and in combat. Hasan has never been deployed. Maybe he caught it second hand from someone else, but to think that his actions are linked to PTSD is a joke. But anything to avoid looking at the very real possibility that Hasan is a (gasp) Muslim and might in fact be a radical (gulp) Islamic terrorist. No, it just can't be that. Islam is a religion of peace, after all!

Bill O'Reilly did a great job on the media bias this past week -- and the absurdity of the PTSD defense that is now making the rounds of the MSM.   Check out the piece on You Tube:

O'Reilly on the media coverage of Fort Hood shooting

The Fort Hood attack shows that while we have been focused abroad on the terrorist threat, the enemy has been organizing against us here at home.  And the enemy isn't just the terrorists like Hasan.  It is the left-wing orthodoxy that forces a "hear no evil, speak no evil" political correctness upon us.

Americans don't need a shepherd

President Obama and his supporters see America in need of a Shepherd. Our nation is, in their mind, basically sheep. Some have coined the term “sheeple.” The mass herd that is the American population can be controlled by the barking dogs of Congress and government departments and regulators. Tax policy is used to bite the heels of different groups. Running from the left to right to left again, President Obama nips at the heels of stragglers and slow moving citizens. Even the President’s own words make clear he sees his role as Shepherd. President Obama has said the Constitution is a collection of “negative” powers. The Constitution is to liberals, a tool for herding the population into a protective pen, a pasture, where the elite will care for and protect (until sheared), the population. Recent major legislation reinforces this view.

Consider health care legislation. The 1900 pages just out from the House ignores real reform and establishes new taxes, regulations, fines and hundreds of managers and boards of review. The herd will be bitten, barked at and growled at until they comply and behave in a manner suited to liberal attitudes. Tax soda, tax fat, tax young people, tax small business and on and on. We are to be herded into compliance. No tort reform. No plan for purchase across state lines. No tax break for individual purchase of insurance.

The Cap and Tax plan promises a green energy future. How? Tax coal. Tax gas. Tax cars. Tax business as it uses energy and transfer that wealth into groups that suit the liberal view of the world. Where is innovation? Where is leadership? Where is trust in the American people? The debate is, we are told, over on climate change. Hiding from debate is not leadership. Hiding from debate is a barking dog at the heels of sheep.

President Obama sees as nearly divine his obligation as the great Shepherd of the people. His speeches reach out to groups, not individuals. His management style is one of listening, consideration then consensus. No where do we see leadership, individual excellence. The President seems to be a barking dog running behind the herd of shee-people, biting here and there, growling and stopping for a moment to rest then rushing off to bark again. The herd circles and moves around the pasture and spends some time grazing, some time drinking and then comes the culling of the herd. Just yesterday President Obama was holding another war group. He sits at the end of the table and listens to all the advisors and then he will bring everyone together. He will “Shepherd” the military into his vision and his plan.

May I be so bold, America does not want or need a Shepherd with sheep dogs. WE NEED AND WANT A LEADER. The problem for President Obama is free people won’t follow a Shepard. They will follow a leader and mostly they will make their world themselves. A very telling example from President Obama is his judgment of the capital gains tax cut put in place under President Bush. When Bill O’Reilly asked then candidate Obama about the increase in revenue the “tax cut” generated Obama disregarded the revenue and said it was just a matter of “fairness.” The President and Democrats in general have never understood that in America freedom equals discretion. The reason a lower capital gains tax rate increases revenue is simple, all first choices that may generate a capital gain are discretionary. No one has to invest or take a risk. When the tax rate gets too high, capital gain based choices will stop. Very simple.

We can apply the same truth to health care. Liberals simply cannot see choice as a good thing. Choice makes sheep herding more difficult. I believe health is the area of greatest personal discretion and when the free people of America feel the barking dogs and the bite of Congressional force upon their health care choices, the American people will revolt.

President Reagan was hated by the shepherds. The barking dogs hate freedom and they hate all things individual. President Reagan saw America as a nation of Eagles. I too believe we are Eagles. Some act as sheep, you can see them in their SEIU and ACCORN tee shirts. It is time for Eagles to fly again. Tell Obama we will not be herded into the pen and sent to slaughter. The United States Constitution leads America, leads the world to individual freedom and greatness. The liberal sees the Constitution as an obstacle to overcome. I see the Constitution as the gateway to freedom.

Kris Hager Gold Star Dad 941*587*9373

Frank Rich: proof positive that the left doesn't get it

Frank Rich, the former NY Times drama critic turned left-wing opinion guru, has today written an opinion piece which provides a great window into how liberals view the world. Not surprisingly, they believe that only right-wing fascist nut-jobs are crazy enough to oppose their enlightened policies and programs. There is no rational, intellectual basis for why conservatives do anything -- except to roll the clock back to the dark days of back alley abortions and segregation.  Its a caricature worthy of a comic book. Rich sees the uproar over the New York 23rd Congressional district race as a sign that the Republicans are in a civil war between "reasonable moderate Republicans" and right-wing conservative ideologues of the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin school. And, predictably, he believes that it will show the nation that the Republican Party is lurching rightward, to a place of armed militias where "angry white men" stalk innocent women, children and minorities. Rich sees what has happened in New York as a "gift" to the Democrats -- and says that the Republican infighting will be "a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond." This view, of course, reflects a belief widely shared among liberals that the "rest of America" doesn't share the basic values that have spurred the pro-Doug Hoffman movement -- limited government, low taxes, and fealty to the Constitution.

According to Rich, such beliefs are "wacky and paranoid":

"The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true."

This is typical left-wing spin. The Republican Party in upstate New York hand selected a liberal Republican who fully supports the Obama stimulus and is both pro-choice and pro gay marriage -- a candidate who is clearly out of step with the conservative demographics of the district. The uproar was created not because of a cabal of "wacky cultists" but because conservatives want a candidate who is not on the Obama socialist bandwagon. That's hardly a radical position. Rich makes it seem -- as liberals often do -- that if you aren't for abortion-on-demand and deficit busting spending you are some right-wing zealot. They are so certain of the moral rightness of their positions that anyone who disagrees is crazy, stupid or both. It is the height of arrogance.

"The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.

The same could be said of Beck, Palin and their acolytes. Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode. They drove out Arlen Specter, and now want to “melt Snowe” (as the blog Red State put it). The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp."

Rich's misread of what is going on here is just staggering. Fortunately for conservatives, Rich's view of the summer tea parties and the conservative awakening is typical of the liberal establishment, which believes that its 2008 election victory marked a fundamental shift in America's politics from center-right to center-left.

The Democrats just don't get what has happened in the 9 months since Obama took office and began his naked power grab. The mood of the country has changed -- and the Congressional race in New York is a reflection of the level of frustration that conservatives have over what is taking place in this country. The more dismissive Rich is, the better it will be for those who want to take back the country in 2010 and 2012. Its a freight train coming, and the left remains deaf and blind to it.

Shhhh...let's not tell them the truth, ok?