The Obama administration has a great new idea.  A new military decoration for: “Courageous Restraint.”  Following is the “reasoning” behind the proposal:

“There should be an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the troops who exhibit extraordinary courage and self-control by not using their weapons, but instead taking personal risk to de-escalate tense and potentially disastrous situations,” the statement said.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/NATO-rewarding-courageous-restraint-awards–93246399.html

 Now some narrow minded people incredibly fail to recognize the universal appeal of this award.  There have even been irresponsible suggestions that this could result in more civilian casualties because of an increase in the use of civilians as human shields.  What nonsense.  The next thing we know we will be accusing terrorists of launching rockets against Israel from civilian homes.  Why some people have even suggested terrorists might consider using civilians as suicide bombers.  How unrealistic is that?  Clearly the people opposed to this rule fail to understand the universal appeal of being strong enough to not fight back. 

Of course the Obama administration has shown resolve in dealing with our real enemies; like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  In addition the President was very forceful in pointing his finger at the executives involved in the BP oil spill while criticizing them for – finger pointing.  We haven’t had this caliber of leader in the United States since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981.  In fact, Obama is on the verge of doing something I previously considered impossible.  He actually makes Carter look competent by comparison.

 TDM

Obama has failed miserably every time he tried to convince the top leaders of Europe to do anything.  He went to Copenhagen to get the Olympics for Chicago.  That worked well!  Then he went back to try get a cap and trade deal.  That also failed.  He begged for more troops for Afghanistan, they responded by withdrawing troops.  He tried to convince them to pass a big stimulus package like he did in the U.S.  They ignored him.  He has struck out in every attempt to exert foreign policy influence.  But suddenly, miraculously, Obama apparently called the leaders of France and Germany and convinced them to pony up $1 trillion to save Greece.  What happened?  Did the vaunted Obama charm finally come through?  Not exactly!  What really happened was that Obama finally said the magic words that got Europe’s attention and convinced them to take action; he blamed Bush:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1277707/Obama-helped-save-Euro-calling-Nicolas-Sarkozy-Angela-Merkel-advice.html

American officials urged that Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel recall the U.S. lesson of 2008-2009 when the Bush administration persuaded a reluctant Congress to approve a massive $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

While politically unpopular, the U.S. rescue plan convinced markets that authorities were serious about keeping banks afloat.

This is remarkable when you think about it.  The only way Obama was been able to convince any foreign power to do something was when he pointed out that this was done by the Bush administration.   It certainly shows who is really respected by world leaders and, more importantly, shows who is not.

The original TARP program, as proposed by Bush, did work reasonably well.  It was a loan and much of it has been paid back.  However, as soon as Pelosi, Reid and Obama got their hands on it they turned it into a catch-all spending program.  I wonder if anyone in the main stream media even noticed!

In the meantime the Obama administration continues its well established pattern of botching any attempt at an effective foreign policy. 

There are rumors that Pakistan told military intelligence that they have captured Mullah Omar.  If this is true, it doesn’t appear anyone bothered to tell the White House.  At least no one bothered to tell Hillary Clinton.  One day after she threatened Pakistan with dire consequences with regard to the Time Square Bomber, the administration started backing down big time.  Richard Holbrooke was sent in to smooth the feathers ruffled by Hillary.  She of course just lied about what she said.  But the problem it that she said it on a television and there is all that video.  (Similar to all those neat shots of Obama promising to put health care negotiations on CSPAN)  One thing is sure, something big happened:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Reports-of-Mullah-Omar-capture-sweep-US/articleshow/5918087.cms

The hypocrisy and/or stupidity of the MSM continues to amaze me on this subject.  In February a combined force of U.S. and Pakistani troops captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second in command to Mullah Omar.  If that had happened during the Bush administration the NYT would have been immediately accusing the U.S. of by-passing water-boarding by letting Pakistan do the dirty deed.  This would have been further evidence of the maniacal mind of the evil Dick Cheney.  Funny thing, I haven’t heard one word from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or even MSNBC demanding that we make sure there’s no unfair questioning going on.  Apparently torture is only torture when it is done by a Republican:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/secondincommand-to-mullah-omar-captured-1901749.html

TDM

President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court.  Let’s see, she is a lesbian, anti-military, tree-hugging, radical socialist from Chicago with zero judicial experience.  Perfect!  What’s pathetic is that she is probably the most acceptable appointment we could even hope to get from Obama.  Since she is already 50 years old, we only have to put up with this nonsense for about 30 to 40 years.

What is really sad is that all of the above is well-known by the main stream media, including Fox News, but it is being ignored.  They are all afraid to have anyone think that any of this matters.  The following excerpts from her college thesis are enough to justify denying her appointment to any judicial position:

 http://209.157.64.200/focus/news/2510390/replies?c=11

This is not denied it is just dismissed as irrelevant.  Really?  Read the following and it becomes clear that Kagan is another extreme radical determined to transform this country.  Sadly, if Republicans do not squash this outrageous nomination, she will be given ample opportunity to do exactly that: 

 “Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.”

So what if she tried to ban military recruiters from Harvard.  So what if she is openly gay.  (The two are related: one of the primary reasons she opposed the military was because of the “moral injustice” of the don’t ask don’t tell policy.)  Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg decided against Kagan on this one!

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/10/kagans-paper-trail/

So what if she has never decided a case and there is no documentation of her thought process regarding major judicial decisions.  In the deluded minds of the liberal left the only true value is political correctness.   Our traditional values are irrelevant to the few, the proud, the chosen, intellectual elite. 

The following article from Jewish World Review demonstrates that Kagan is a secular humanist who will forgive anything if the person’s world viewpoint is politically correct: 

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0510/kagan_blemish_gahr.php3

The plagiarism in this case was not an isolated incident, it was pervasive.  Ironically it involved a book about the liberal left’s successful strategy to deny Robert Bork’s appointment to the Supreme Court, because he could not pass the liberal litmus test. 

Republicans need to take a stand against allowing this radical a life time appointment to the Supreme Court.  We need to demand that they resist this just as strongly and just as effectively as the Democrats resisted the nomination of Robert Bork.  I suggest we borrow from the strategy used by Ted Kennedy:

Here is what Kennedy said:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy… President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.”

None of what Kennedy said was true about Robert Bork or his position on any issue, but, sadly, all of the following is very true with regard to Elena Kagan.  Here is the speech Republicans should give now: 

Elena Kagan’s America will be a country we no longer recognize.  It will be a country where gay marriage will be imposed by an activist judiciary that believes its own moral value system is the only one that matters.  It will be a country where freedom of religion primarily means freedom from Christianity.  It will be a country where the capitalism that made us the most prosperous nation on earth will be replaced by a socialist redistribution of wealth.  It will be a country where political correctness is more important than abiding by the law or well-established ethical standards.  President Obama is still our president, but he should not be able to reach out into the cesspool of his radical past to impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans.  

Kennedy got it right.  “No justice would be better than this injustice.”

TDM

Robert Gibbs became extremely upset at the very thought of having the Obama administration’s performance regarding the BP Oil Rig disaster compared to the Bush administration response to Katrina.  I did some research to try to determine what mistakes were made by the Bush administration with regard to Katrina.  I was shocked at how badly this situation was misrepresented in the main stream media, including Fox News.  There was gross incompetence here, but the vast majority of it was by the main stream media who committed media malpractice in the way they reported this important event.   Until I researched this article, I never realized that not only did the press get this all wrong, they missed one of the greatest stories of all time. 

The media image was one where the federal government was totally disorganized leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of people to fend for themselves.  Following are just some of the comments made by the news media and others:

Kim Segan, CNN:

It was chaos.  There was nobody there, nobody in charge.  And there was nobody giving even water.  The children, you should see them, they’re all in tears.  There are sick people.  We saw…people who are dying in front of you.

Mayor Ray Nagin:

The Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 20,000 people.

Evacuee Raymond Cooper:

Sir, you’ve got about 3,000 people here in this – – in the Convention Center right now now.  They’re hungry.  Don’t have any food.  We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Ceter by our mayor.  And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

FEMA Chief Brown:

That has not been reported to me, so I’m not going to comment.  Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, “We have bodies located here or there,” I’m just not going to speculate.

Chris Lawrence, CNN:

From here and from talking to the police officers, they’re losing control of the city.  We’re now standing on the roof of one of the police stations.  The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn’t safe to be out on the street.

FEMA Chief Brown:

I actually think the security is pretty darn good.  There’s some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there’s somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face.

Homeland Security Director Chertoff:

Now, of course, a critical element of what we’re doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted.  And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing in enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

Mayor Nagin:

They don’t have a clue what’s going on down here.

Phyllis Petrich, tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton:

They are invisible.  We have no idea where they are.  We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where?  We have not seen them.  We have not seen FEMA officials.  We have seen no one.

Anderson Cooper, CNN:

And when they hear politicians . . . you know, thanking one another, it just . . . cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body in the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman has been laying in the streets for 48 hours. 

Celine Deon:

I open the television, there’s people still there waiting to be rescued, and for me that’s not acceptable.  I know there’s reasons for it.  I’m sorry to say I’m being rude but I don’t want to hear those reasons.

FEMA Chief Brown:

Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

Aaron Broussard, President Jefferson Parish, LA.,  Meet the Press, Sept 4, 2005:

The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.

On September 2, 2005, CNN ran a report titled “The big disconnect on New Orleans”  They were right. But it was CNN, and the rest of the main stream media, that was disconnected from the truth.  What we saw on television was almost totally wrong.  While Homeland Security and FEMA were pretty much out of the loop, the comments made by FEMA Chief Brown and Homeland Security Director Chertoff were far more accurate than anything being reported on CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS or MSNBC.  What happened is that the news media was simply shooting from safe locations and running the same graphic video clips over and over again.  In the meantime, the greatest rescue operation in the history of the world was going on right under their noses.  Their reporting was so bad that FEMA showed up Friday, September 2, 2005, with an 18-wheel tractor and a refrigerated trailer to pick up the 200 bodies.  There were no bodies!  There were no rapes.  There were no murders.  The only shots fired were false reports by ill-informed reporters. 

Here is what really happened, the story NEVER told to the American people:

By Thursday, August 25, 2005,  Hurricane Katrina had already hit Florida as a Category 1 storm.  Virtually every forecaster was predicting this to be a massive Category 5 hurricane, and it was heading directly toward New Orleans.  President Bush declared a State of Emergency authorizing federal aid on Saturday, August 27, 2005, in order to make funding and National Guard assets available to the state of Lousiana and the City of New Orleans.   Governor Blanco praised President Bush for his quick response and leadership until the news media convinced her she was wrong.  Mayor Nagin refused to order a mandatory evacuation and instead ordered a voluntary evacuation.  Although there were many buses readily available, the Mayor made no attempt to help people evacuate.  President Bush called both Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin on Sunday morning and warned them that this was a very dangerous storm and urged them to order a mandatory evacuation.  Finally, a mandatory evacuation was finally announced at 10:00 a.m.  But, even though hundreds of buses were available to evacuate people, they were not ordered to be used until Wednesday.  By then, a large number of these buses were underwater. 

Less than two hours after the mandatory evacuation was ordered, the Superdome was designated as a refuge of last resort, and 4,444 Army National Guard and 932 Air National Guard troops were deployed with three truckloads of water and seven truckloads of MRE’s to the Superdome.  This was enough to supply 15,000 people for three days.   In addition, a dozen emergency shelters were set up, 200 plus boats were secured, dozens of high water vehicles were positioned, 150 helicopters were assigned and a triage and a medical center was set up.  All of that happened before Katrina made landfall.  It was the largest National Guard deployment in history with over 50,000 troops deployed in less than two weeks.

The Army National Guard, the Air National Guard and the Coast Guard were on site ready, willing and extremely able to take action before the storm even hit.  Army helicopters were dispersed prior to Katrina making landfall, so that they could be deployed immediately when weather conditions made that possible.  The helicopters literally circled the storm and followed it on shore.  They started landing in New Orleans less than two hours after the storm hit. 

The response to Hurricane Katrina was the largest, fastest and most successful rescue operation in the history of the world.  Over 100,000 emergency personnel were on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.  Some main stream media people speculated that New Orleans suffered because of National Guard deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.  The opposite was true.  Because of these deployments the National Guard had well trained, combat hardened troops who knew how to operate under very difficult circumstances.  The leaders of the National Guard quickly took charge, and they were hugely successful because they did not have a lot of unnecessary guidance from FEMA, Homeland Security,  the State of Louisiana or the City of New Orleans.  Almost all of the mistakes in handling Katrina took place later when the involvement of all these agencies resulted in delay and confusion.

It is important to understand that by 11:00 a.m. Monday, August 29, 2005 many parts of Bernard Parish already had over 10 feet of water.  Thousands of people were already in desperate need of rescue.  There were numerous reports of people literally clinging to trees.  Other people had chopped holes in their roof, from the inside, so they could get above the water.

Initial estimates were of at least 10,000 deaths and some experts predicted the final death toll could be as high as 60,000.   Frankly, that is probably pretty accurate with regard to what would have happened if it had not been for the heroic efforts of the Army National Guard and the Coast Guard. 

There were over 50,000 people in deadly peril,- no food, no water- clinging to roofs or and trees.  The Coast Guard alone rescued over 33,000 people in less than three days.  The Army National Guard rescued another 17,000 by air and another 20,000 with boats staffed by local police, fire, Army National Guard and the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game.  The New Orleans local government command and control had collapsed and wasn’t able to communicate with anyone, so the National Guard just took over.  In the meantime, the Coast Guard stayed focused on their rescue mission.

The National Guard set up a command post, with satellite communications on the parking lot of the Superdome.  They were the only people able to communicate with the outside world.  They also set up the main command post in Jackson Barracks.  There is a well-established system known as Emergency Management Assistance Compacs (EMACs), and it worked brilliantly.  This system worked well because it deliberately by-passed local officials and the federal chain of command.  While CNN was celebrating a near miss, the National Guard knew better.  There was already over 20 feet of water around Jackson Barracks.  By noon on Monday, there was a conference call between National Guard commanders in all 50 states and two territories.  National Guard units from as far away as Wisconsin begin arriving Monday night.  The National Guard had the situation under control before FEMA knew what was going on. 

They also set up a medical triage unit that treated over 5,000 people who were injured or ill, delivered seven babies and had only six deaths.  Four were from natural causes, one died from a drug overdose and one committed suicide.

The headquarters for this massive search and rescue operation was at the Lousiana Superdome, the same place previously described by the CNN news reporter as utter chaos with no one in charge.  While CNN kept running the same 10-second clip of crying babies, they failed to see the miraculous rescue taking place right under their noses.  National Guard records show that they flew 10,224 sorties, moved 88,181 passengers, hauled 18,834 tons of cargo and saved 17,411 lives just by air.  Thousands more were saved by the 200 plus boats the guard managed to scrounge up.

The Coast Guard saved another 33,000 people.  The people in the New Orleans Superdome and the Convention Center were unhappy.  It was hot, over 100 degrees and they were only fed one MRE per day, along with plenty of drinking water.  It certainly was an uncomfortable place to be, but the Army National Guard and the Coast Guard made the right decision to concentrate on those people who would have died if they were not rescued.  While CNN was complaining about all those people “suffering in the Superdome” they were oblivious to the thousands of lives being saved.  I guess CNN thought that delivering PortaPotties to the Superdome was more important than saving lives.  Fortunately, decisions were being made by trained National Guard personnel and not arrogant CNN anchors who failed to grasp the difference between being uncomfortable and being in deadly peril.  Astonishingly, even though more than 50,000 people had to be rescued, in 100-degree heat and high humidity, not one single person died from dehydration.

Major John T. Dressler was at the scene and eventually prepared the after-action reports for the National Guard Bureau.  Major Ed Bush was also at the scene during most of the week.  Neither of them reported seeing a single camera crew or reporter on the scene.  Major Bush did see some reporters at the Superdome, but he felt they were only interested in confirming the stacks of bodies in freezers, interviewing alleged rape victims and verifying reports of crime and mayhem.  They weren’t interested in reporting on the unprecedented rescue operations.  Some camera crews who did manage to hitch rides on helicopters, but while they filmed people on roof tops, they provided very little coverage of the massive rescue operation.

Attached are two excellent articles documenting what really happened.  The first is from Popular Mechanics and the second is from Real Clear Politics.  Neither one can be considered a white wash of the Bush administration, since both were highly critical of FEMA and Homeland Security. 

 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/katrina_what_the_media_missed.html

 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/2315076

If there is a real villain here, it is Mayor Nagin, in my opinion.  While he was quick to scream and yell about everyone else, he was close to criminally negligent himself.  He refused to order a mandatory evacuation when every credible forecaster was describing this as a major hurricane.  In reality, Katrina was much weaker than the forecast.  He explained his reasoning during an interview with Tim Russert:

MAYOR NAGIN: Well, Tim, you know, we basically wove this incredible tightrope as it is. We were in a position of trying to encourage as many people as possible to leave because we weren’t comfortable that we had the resources to move them out of our city. Keep in mind: normal evacuations, we get about 60 percent of the people out of the city of New Orleans. This time we got 80 percent out. We encouraged people to buddy up, churches to take senior citizens and move them to safety, and a lot of them did. And then we would deal with the remaining people that couldn’t or wouldn’t leave and try and get them to higher ground until safety came.

“Who in the leadership position hates black people?” asked Russert.

“I don’t know who hates black people,” responded Nagin, “but I will just tell you this, that I think the imagery that came out across the nation portrayed that this was primarily poor black people that were affected. And I don’t know if that affected the response or not. But I got really upset when I heard about some of our residents walking to one of the parish lines and were turned back by attack dogs and armed guys with machine guns.”

Mayor Nagin ignored the fact that he had plenty of school buses available to help evacuate people.  Instead, he encouraged people, many of whom did not even own vehicles, to “consider” finding a way out on their own.    

The media reported that the majority of local police and fire fighters just took off.  That was not true.  What really happened was a total lack of leadership by the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, so the National Guard took over.  The majority of local police and fire fighters were available, but the City communications system was totally inoperative.  The Guard started passing out radios to local police, fire and numerous volunteers.  It was not a perfect communication system, but it was the only communications system available.  It worked remarkably well.

There were only six deaths at the Superdome, four of natural causes, one drug overdose and one suicide.  This is a remarkable contrast to the presentation by the media and the image believed by far too many people today.  They also managed to deliver seven babies. 

It is also important to remember that the main reason there were thousands of people clinging to roof tops was because of the gross negligence of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco in waiting too long to order a mandatory evacuation.  While the National Guard and the Coast Guard deployed immediately, further federal assistance required the approval of the incompetent City of New Orleans and the equally incompetent State Government who demanded to be in charge.  This is very similar to what happened when General Pershing arrived with our troops in France during WWI.  The French, who had lost every battle and slaughtered thousands of their own troops, wanted to provide the same skilled leadership for the fresh cannon fodder from the U.S.  Pershing refused to just turn over his troops to such obviously incompetent leadership.  So did the Bush administration.

The media botched this story.  While most Americans thought people were dying because the federal government was too slow to react, the opposite was true.  While the National Guard and the Coast Guard were literally plucking thousands of people from death’s door, CNN was outraged because it took too long to round up enough buses needed to evacuate people from the Superdome.  That did happen, but CNN was too focused on Bush bashing to notice that the reason was because the National Guard and the Coast Guard were too busy saving lives.  Instead of demonstrating neglect and incompetence, it was a brilliant balancing of scarce resources under incredibly difficult circumstances.

This was not done because Bush was down there micro-managing things.  It was done because as Commander-in-Chief, he had delegated those responsibilities to highly qualified people and he let them do their jobs.  He did the smartest thing of all when he stayed out of the way and let the professionals do their job.  For this, he was literally pilloried in the press.

There were a lot of mistakes made by the Bush administration with regard to Katrina.  Homeland Security and FEMA pulled an Al Haig and tried to act like they were in charge when they didn’t know squat.  The White House public relations response was a total disaster.  But ultimately, it was never the job of either FEMA or Homeland Security to manage this type of situation.  It was the job of the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.  When they dropped the ball they were extremely fortunate that the National Guard stepped up to the plate and hit a home run.

The law thing Obama should want is to be honestly compared with how Bush handled hurricane Katrina.

TDM

Several years ago we were visiting friends who had just got a cute little kitten.  During the course of the evening the kitten started scratching on the back of their new couch.  Our friend was enraged, so he grabbed the kitten by the scuff of the neck and threw him outside.  For the next 15 years whenever that cat wanted to go outside, he scratched the couch!

My friend simply failed to understand how a cat thinks.  The cat didn’t think he was being punished, he thought he was being rewarded by being allowed to go outside.  The quick toss just made it more fun.

This reminds me of the anti-terrorism strategy used by the Obama administration.  People attack us, so Obama apologizes for the U.S. being such an awful country, in the irrational expectation that this will make people love us.  Not exactly.  They still hate us, it’s just now that if they attack us, they get love and attention.  For them this is a win win.  They get to attack us, which is their main reason for living, and they are rewarded with a heartfelt apology for the U.S. being such an awful country in the first place.    Even the promise of all those virgins has trouble competing with this.

Of course the liberal left does not understand this at all.  They are still grieving that this guy had no apparent connection to the violent tea party movement.  As, expected, some of the usual suspects, like the ever predictable Chris Matthews, are desperately trying to blame this on the would-be terrorist’s hatred of George Bush.  It is a bit of a reach, but the liberal media has never been able to resist another opportunity for Bush bashing.   Fact, of course, never get in the way of liberal analysis.

In the mean time the increasingly incompetent Obama administration seems stunned that their charm and apology tour has somehow failed to work.  At some point even Obama is likely to become frustrated with the irritating habit of peace loving Muslims trying to set off bombs and kill people.  Once he gets finished eliminating the much more serious threat of violence from all those aging white folk in the tea party movement, he may just do something about it.  Perhaps this time he will apologize in arabic.

 TDM

When I was very young I had a dog that was half husky and God knows what.  There were rumors that a wolf might have been involved.  In any event, he loved to howl at the moon.  But, after several years of intensive effort, this technique never accomplished much, other than to annoy the heck out of our neighbors.  This is similar to the Obama administration’s attempt to stop terrorism by howling at the Tea Party movement.

The main stream media was desperately hoping that the failed bombing attempt in NYC would be linked to the Tea Party movement.  Mayor Bloomberg made the following response to a question from the ever brilliant Katie Couric: 

If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that … Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something

The administration was very careful to avoid using the word terrorism for several hours.  Notice that the initial description was of a 40 year old white male.  That is what they hoped to find.   They wanted another Timothy McVeigh.

Instead they got, shock, a U.S. citizen who just happened to be a Muslim that had recently visited Pakistan for several months on vacation.  Hmmm.  Seems to me there is someone else we know who did that.   Oh well. 

It is already obvious that NYC dodged a bullet only because this guy botched the job.  They had no clue, although there are already reports that he was on a watch list.  But, it would be just plain wrong to investigate someone just because he is a Muslim and he goes on an extended vacation to a garden spot like Pakistan.    That would be so politically incorrect.  Instead we need to use our resources to watch the dangerous Tea Party people.  I mean just watch the recent video of those violent demonstrations.   Hasn’t anyone seen the outrageous violence connected with these people (Oops…I got it confused with the video of the protests against the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law).

It just makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over to see Attorney General Eric Holder personally managing this investigation.  I sure hope we read this guy his Miranda rights and got him a really good attorney.  Oops.  Another mistake.  We should have forced him to watch the Obama administration’s PowerPoint presentation on Afghanistan.  Who knows, that might have resulted in the highly desired connection to the Tea Party movement.

 TDM

I doubt seriously that someone as openly anti-Semitic as Barack Obama could really spell “Chutzpah,”  so I used the traditional Chicago spelling.  The best definition I have heard of Chutzpah is the man who killed his parents and then threw himself at the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.  But that definition of Chutzpah pales in comparison with the Obama administration claims with regard to “Oil Gate.  

The problem with incompetent people is that when faced with a real challenge, they tend to provide positive proof of that incompetence.  When Hurricane Katrina struck, George Bush actually was on top of it from the start, but he still took significant blame for things totally outside of his control.  The initial response to a hurricane is the responsibility of the local government and FEMA isn’t even expected to show up for several days.  Unfortunately the press, addicted to Bush bashing, totally misrepresented what happened.  The reality is that federal resources, particularly the Coast Guard, responding to Katrina pulled off the most successful large scale evacuation in the history of the world.  In any other country, thousands of people would have died.

However, the BP oil rig disaster is the exact opposite.  Here the response to handle this rests solely on the federal government, because the oil rig is 48 miles off shore.  NOAA has known about this risk since the mid 1990’s and well established procedures were in place to handle this kind of situation.  One of those procedures was to immediately start a burn off of the oil.  That could have reduced the amount of oil potentially spreading by nearly 90%.  It is really quite simple.  When the oil first comes up to the surface of the water it is heavily concentrated and easily ignited.  But, if you wait, it disperses rapidly and quickly becomes impossible to contain.  Under the Bush administration, the Coast Guard had standing authorization to conduct such a burn without having to obtain prior approval, as long as the wind was blowing off shore. 

Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill

By Ben Raines

May 03, 2010, 12:09PM

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html

The simple truth is that the Obama administration sat on their buns and did nothing for 8 days.  By the time they decided to act, the opportunity to prevent this disaster was gone.  All they had to do was follow the guidelines in place under the Bush administration and this problem would have been handled by the on scene Coast Guard commander.  I noticed that Coast Guard Admiral is a woman and I would hazard a guess that the old white guys, who knew what to do, were replaced with a politically correct appointment.

Unfortunately for Obama, it is becoming really obvious that his administration blew this one big time.

By the way, when they did respond the first thing they sent out was SWAT teams, following closely by environmental attorneys.  (They also cancelled the reward for an outstanding safety record they were scheduled to present to BPP)  This would seem to indicate that the administration has reason to believe this was not an accident.  There are already bizarre rumors, including one that the North Korean’s did the deed.  That seems unlikely, but a whole lot of things had to go wrong for this to happen.  Keep in mind that this happened the day before earth day and there are a lot of environmental extremists who consider bombing things socially desirable.  This was more than convenient for the environmental lobby so violently opposed to new off shore drilling.  Coincidence? 

Obama Announces He Will Be Sending SWAT Teams To Oil Rigs

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/29/obama_announces_he_will_be_sending_swat_teams_to_oil_rigs.html

Chutzpah

TDM