Obama, the reluctant warmonger, punts

Obama Will Seek Syria Vote in Congress:

President Obama stunned the capital and paused his march to war by asking lawmakers, who are not due to return to town for more than a week, to give him authorization before he launches a limited military strike against Syria. ...

 George W. Bush on Syria:

... when Fox's Brian Kilmeade tried to elicit any semblance of an opinion from Bush on intervention in Syria, the former president laughed and brushed him off.

"The president has to make a tough call, Brian," he said. "I know you're trying to subtly rope me into the issues of the day. I refuse to be roped in."

Mark Steyn:  An Accidental War

Perfunctory and ineffectual war-making in Syria is worse than nothing.

Muslim Brotherhood Penetration of the U.S. Government

Former CIA operations officer, Clare Lopez, traces the origins and activities of the Muslim Brotherhood leading to their success in penetrating the U.S. government:

... it should be noted that massive financial support from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf sheikhdoms has always played a central and deeply important role in the ability of the Brotherhood to fund its global expansion,

... The first task was to maneuver Muslim Brothers into positions of trust with key U.S. government ...

... The U.S. executive branch, from the president to the NSC and key Cabinet Departments, had been effectively neutered at the very start of the Global War on Terror. This is how President Bush could stand on 17 September 2001 inside the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., flanked by Nihad Awad, Executive Director of CAIR (the U.S. branch of HAMAS), and in all sincerity, declare that "Islam is peace."

The George W. Bush administration was targeted with a multifaceted, sophisticated information operation designed to deceive national security officials about the true nature of the Islamic jihadist enemy that attacked the homeland on 9/11. Surrounded by Muslim Brotherhood voices which told him true Islam had been "hijacked" by a "tiny minority of extremists," ... President Bush ... was successfully deterred from investigating the belief system that inspired those hijackers by a blanket of Muslim Brotherhood taqiyya that successfully smothered inquiry about the very Islamic doctrine that al-Qa'eda and the hijackers themselves declared to be their motivation. Although few realize it to this day, the crippling of the Bush administration's GWOT response marked a crucial turning point in the U.S. ability to defend itself against Islamic jihad. ...
　

... As bad as these developments were, things became immeasurably worse for American national security under the administration of Barack Obama. Whereas President Bush and most of his administration insiders remained largely unaware that they had been manipulated by the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and his close advisors proactively chose to reach out to the Brotherhood, its affiliates, and supporters for advice, training, and even administration appointments. ...

That's just a small sample from Ms. Lopez's paper. A fascinating read.

[Via Blazing Catfur]

Matt Damon's respect for and appreciation of George W. Bush

Matt Damon just loves what George W. Bush did for AIDS relief: 

... He did PEPFAR (... the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) ...

And to show his respect and appreciation, Damon says:

"I would kiss George W. Bush on the mouth ... Three seconds. No tongue."

Har, har - I'm sure GWB feels the love.  A typical Hollywood leftist nitwit, Damon can't compliment a conservative without throwing in an insulting gesture.  I hate to think what he'd say he wanted to do if he were really, really ecstatic about something Bush did.  Sodomy comes to mind.

Damon goes on:

... I just had a sense of national pride going around, talking to these [African] people, and they were so happy, they would say, "America," and I was saying, "Yeah, our president did that, and it's terrific." It's such an obvious connected thing. People aren't going to hate you when you're saving their lives. [Sure, it's all about you, Matt.] ...

[Via]

The National Post smells like the CBC

This latest lame screed from Jonathan Kay, attacking Mitt Romney and the Republicans while offering nothing but praise for Barack Obama, has a distinct whiff of CBC about it.

Kay complains that Romney, et al, fail to credit Obama for recent American successes in the war-on-terror (keeping Guantanamo open, drone attacks on al Qaeda, killing bin-Laden, killing al-Awlaki, etc.) and now for winning in Libya. He also thinks Republicans unfairly attack Obama for being a weak, even anti-American leader (dissing America’s friends while apologizing for it’s alleged past mistreatment of everyone else.)

First, the American right (eg. virtually every commentator on Fox News) freely credits Obama’s prosecution of the war-on-terror and gives him due credit for Libya.

Second, Obama’s global “apology tour” is a fact. Obama campaigned on weak-kneed multi-lateralism and anti-Bush rhetoric (plus “Hope and Change”). The apology tours came early-on in Obama’s presidency and produced no discernibly useful results. His war-on-terror creds came later, after he began to acknowledge the real world (but continues to bash Bush).

Third, you’d think Kay was completely unaware that there’s a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION in 2012 and that the Republicans are in the midst of choosing their candidate. Only an idiot would campaign for that job by praising Obama’s performance. There’s no way Jonathan Kay is dumb enough, or ill-informed enough not to know this.

Conclusion: Jonathan Kay is, just like the CBC, blatantly in the tank for Obama’s re-election.

What’s really weird is that he’s selling out his journalistic integrity on the dopey, narcissistic premise that what he writes might actually make any difference. How much more like the CBC could he be, short of actually joining them? It looks like the Post’s mega$ relationship with the CBC includes swapping editorial content.

Massacre memorial speeches - Obama v Bush

Good speech. But what's with the audience's cheering, hooting and whistling - like it was a pep rally? Poor show - distracting and very undignified.

Compare and contrast with Pres. Bush's speech at the Virginia Tech memorial (note the link to Malkin).

Jokers: Double standards

On seeing this depiction of Obama , an LA Daily writer snaps out the race card: "The only thing missing is the noose." (Check out the comments).

















While this Vanity Fair rendition of George W. Bush is apparently considered "high art".

More on libs' short memories.




[via]



Anyway, my favourite Joker is still this guy.

The Obama three-step

Charles Krauthammer:

... the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.

... Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: "The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e., slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e., the surge) -- and now Guantanamo."

... Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition -- turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets -- claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus -- to detainees in Afghanistan's Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo.

... The Bush policies in the war on terror won't have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

Time's photo tribute, President Bush's "cult of personality"

Time magazine published this video featuring photos of President George W. Bush during his two terms. It's a very nice tribute, marred only by the loopy comments of one of the photographers who says he was "shocked" by the "cult of personality building up around George W. Bush" following 9/11. Good grief! One wonders what he thinks of the mania surrounding B. Hussein Obama. Sorry, lost my head. No doubt he thinks it's completely rational.

[h/t]

The Hitch has no regrets that Bush was president

His column may not be the most glowing tribute to George W. Bush but Christopher Hitchens makes some good points.

First and foremost Bush prevented Al Gore and John Kerry from being president. But even had the Democrats prevailed Hitchens wonders how they would have responded to situations in which they so rabidly denounced Bush’s policies:

"... The Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act [was] rushed through both Houses by Bill Clinton after the relative pin prick of the Oklahoma City bombing ... Given that precedent and multiplying it for the sake of proportion, I think we can be pretty sure that wiretapping and water-boarding would have become household words, perhaps even more quickly than they did, and that we might even have heard a few more liberal defenses of the practice.

"... I don't know if Gore-Lieberman would have thought of using Guantanamo Bay, but that, of course, raises the interesting question—now to be faced by a new administration—of where exactly you do keep such actually or potentially dangerous customers, especially since you are not supposed to "rendition" them. There would have been a nasty prison somewhere or a lot of prisoners un-taken on the battlefield, you can depend on that.

"... We might have avoided the Iraq war, even though both Bill Clinton and Al Gore had repeatedly and publicly said that another and conclusive round with Saddam Hussein was... unavoidably in our future. ... I think it's a certainty that historians will not conclude that the removal of Saddam Hussein was something that the international community ought to have postponed any further. (Indeed, if there is a disgrace, it is that previous administrations left the responsibility undischarged.)"

Since Bush pretty much dedicated his presidency to the security of the nation after 9/11 he’s been a success.

Read the whole thing here at Slate.

Goodbye George, hello B. Hussein

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