McCarthy warned us, but we didn’t listen.  On February 5, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy published a name of 57 known communists working for the State Department.  He said that allowing known communists or communist sympathizers in positions where they had access to sensitive information, and where they had input on policy making, constituted a serious threat to our national security. McCarthy was discredited and today McCarthyism is associated with an irresponsible witch hunt used to smear innocent people.  But the problem is that most of the people investigated by McCarthy were not innocent at all.  To our everlasting shame, Democrats were more interested in destroying McCarthy than they were in finding out if he was right.  Republicans were more concerned about distancing themselves politically from McCarthy than they were in standing up to a threat to our national security.  Even today, Republicans routinely run from a challenge, if threatened by being branded with McCarthyism.

The Venona project started in 1942.  It was a 38-year special project by the NSA to decode intercepted soviet dispatches.  As a result of brilliant work by our cryptographers, it was established that there were soviet spies in our government, and many of them were arrested and convicted.  Some of these people were very highly placed.

Following is the official NSA summary of the Venoma project:

http://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/publications/coldwar/venona_story.pdf

Although the main stream media downplayed the problem, General Omar Bradley, Army Chief of Staff knew better.  He deliberately withheld direct information about Venona to President Truman and to his administration.  (Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR was removed from the list of people given direct access to the code breaking of the Japanese diplomatic code.)  The reason, in both cases, was that the security leaks from the White House were so serious that intelligence officials felt, correctly, that our national security was at risk.  While neither FDR, or Truman, were considered threats to our national security, many of their associates clearly were threats. 

The Venona Project was not declassified until 1995.  At first the liberal left tried to discredit the information because it did not fit with their widely held belief that people did not represent a threat just because they were communists.  However, subsequent research into Soviet archives provided confirmation with regard to most of the people identified as threats to our security by the Venona project.  The NSA kept working on translating these documents up until 1980.  Ironically, if this information had been released in 1950, today we would be celebrating Joseph McCarthy as an American hero.

Now we once again have an administration where people have been appointed to critical positions with little or no regard to their potentially dangerous associations.  One thing that is very clear from the Venona project and other documents is that the American Communist Party was an active participant in espionage against the United States of America.  McCarthy felt that anyone who was a communist, or who had a close relationship with a communist, should be removed from sensitive positions.  He did not try to blacklist them, or imprison them, he just considered them security threats who should not be allowed access to sensitive information.

It is important to note that there was more than just espionage.  The Soviet Union also infiltrated people into positions where they could influence policy.  Alger Hiss was a well known radical.  He also happened to be a member of the Harvard Law review.   His background was full of relationships with very radical people.  But, he was a family friend of FDR, and even when FDR was directly confronted with evidence that Hiss might be a soviet spy, FDR ignored it.   Alger Hiss was a strong advocate for the socialist New Deal programs.  He was also closely connected with Harry Wallace, who went on to become Vice President of the United States under FDR, from 1941 to 1945.  Wallace was replaced by Truman in 1945.  After FDR died, Wallace personally criticized Truman for his uncompromising stance against the Soviet Union.  In 1948, Wallace ran for President of the United States for the Progressive Party.  His campaign was literally managed by the communist party.  By replacing Truman with Wallace, FDR just may have spared this country from having a communist or at least a fellow traveler, as President of the United States.  

Harry Hopkins, FDR’s closest advisor, has been alleged to have been a soviet spy.  A soviet defector, Oleg Gordievsky, was a KGB officer smuggled out of the Soviet Union by British intelligence.  He claimed that Iskhak Ahkmerov, the KGB officer who controlled illegal soviet agents in the United States said that Hopkins “was the most important of all soviet wartime agents in the United States.”  We may never know whether this is true or not, but we do know that it was Hopkins who insisted that aid be extended to Stalin with no strings attached and it is even alleged that he may have arranged for the shipment of uranium to the Soviet Union that allowed them to develop the atomic bomb.

http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/the-treachery-of-harry-hopkins/

Now fast forward to today.  We have a President of the United States who was allegedly mentored, as a teenager, by a card-carrying communist, Frank Marshal Davis.  The same President had a close personal relationship with William Ayers, who has admitted to conducting terrorist attacks designed to overthrow the government of the United States.   He has appointed numerous people with extreme left,  radical, if not communist backgrounds, to high-level positions. 

Glenn Beck has been warning people that we ignore President Obama’s radical connections to our peril.  The main stream media is out to destroy Glenn Back as an out-of-control maniac.  This is the same strategy that was successfully used to destroy Joseph McCarthy.  (Of course McCarthy contributed to his own downfall.)   But, while they were successful in destroying Joseph McCarthy, that did not make them right.  In restrospect, destroying McCarthy did grave risk to our national security.  Even if Obama himself is not a threat, history has proven that just appointing radicals people to positions of high influence is definitely a threat to our national security.

Now, the FBI has apparently arrested 10 Russians spies, who are allegedly long term agents “SENT TO INFILTRATE POLICY MAKING CIRCLES.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/fbi-breaks-up-alleged-russian-spy-ring-deep-cover

They describe this as a long-term deep cover network of agents.  I do not know the full significance of this event.  But it at least appears that the Soviet Union never changed its strategy.  We just stopped paying attention.  Now, ask yourself:  “Does this matter …or not?   I do not know if anyone appointed by Obama is a threat to national security.  I do not know if anyone appointed by Bush, or Clinton or any other President was a security threat.  However, at a minimum, shouldn’t SOMEONE be asking the question?

TDM

The current ROE (Rules of Engagement) in Afghanistan are really Rules of Embrittlement.  The only possible result is to weaken, possibly terminally, the offensive capability of the greatest military in the history of the world. 

The real story with regard to General Stanley McChrystal is the ridiculous rules of engagement that are currently in force in Afghanistan.  The soldiers are totally pissed that they are expected to expose themselves to enemy fire, but can’t even fire back if there is any risk of civilian casualties.  They blamed McChrystal for that.  The ONLY criticism of McChrystal from the troops, that I have seen, is in regard to the rules of engagement.

Almost immediately there are rumors that a:  Petraeus is going to reverse those rules, followed closesly by b: no he is not.  Odds are pretty high that those brilliants rules of engagement came from the White House, not McChrystal and that when Obama talks about keeping the same strategy that is exactly what he has in mind:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/25/petraeus-modify-afghanistan-rules-engagement-source-says/

If these rules of engagement remain in place, Petraeus is going to have serious problems.  If they are changed, it will be hard to argue that this was not a change in strategy.  Interesting thought:   McChrystal has been getting phone calls and letters from the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan blaming him because of the rules of engagement.  That would be hard to take, even if the rules were your own idea.  It would be nearly impossible to take if those rules were jammed down your throat.

I can speak from experience that sometimes when I was an Executive Officer for ABM I was ordered to do things with which I had strongly disagreed.  While it was perfectly acceptable for me to express my disagreement, once the decision was made, my duty was to implement the decision with the same enthusiasm as if it were my own decision.  In order words I couldn’t say something like: “ I disagree with this, but these are orders. “  That was never an option.  If I felt I couldn’t fully support the rules,  I would have been expected to resign. 

The same is true of McChrystal.  He may have strongly disagreed with the rules of engagement.  That seems likely since he was a hard-nosed take no prisoners, unless you want to torture them, kind of guy in Iraq.   But, it would have been his duty to implement the rules, enthusiastically and never give even a hint that he disagreed with the decision. 

The real question is:  “ what is he going to do now? “ Anyone losing a job suffers some stress.  Being fired from one of the post powerful positions in the world, in a publicly humiliating fashion, has got to be overpowering.  It will be interesting to see how he responds. 

Here is what to watch.  If Petraeus is successful in getting the rules of engagement changed, that may push McChrystal over the edge.  He would not likely be thrilled at being blamed for those rules of engagement unless they really were his idea.  On the other hand, if the rules of engagement are not changed, Petraeus is going to have a major moral problem with the troops.  That will quickly tell the troops that it wasn’t McChrystal’s policy, it was Obama’s policy.  At least some of them are going to become vocal about it.  Seeing your buddies die unnecessarily because of idiotic decisions like the current rules of engagement tends to bring out hate and discontent.

TDM

We are about to learn a lot about Al Gore, none of it good.  To his detractors, it has been obvious for years that Al Gore was an egotistical, arrogant, uneducated, incompetent ass.  He constantly lied about nearly everything and scornfully refused to debate the inferior few who failed to pass out in the shadow of his brilliance.  At the same time he made scathing remarks about the character of George Bush, he apparently never seemed capable of considering his own potential for error.  The media would have us believe that privately he was this warm and friendly family guy.  Please!   While there are a lot of people who pretend to be nice in public only to be total jerks in private, most people who are jerks in public are even worse in private.

His global warming movie was a pathetic eight grade level production spewing utter nonsense, but since it was from St. Al Gore and since most of the main stream media continue to be global warming Kool Aid drinkers, it was celebrated as a major accomplishment. 

But regardless of the false image presented by the media, Al Gore continued to be….Al Gore.  The sheen started to come off when it became more and more obvious that global warming is at least delayed for a while.  Then we got the “surprise” announcement that he and Tipper Gore were separating.  How could this be, when he was such a really nice guy.  There was no affair of course.  (Right!  We all believed that one.)  But someone, the National Inquirer, did what the main stream media never even considered.  They started investigating.  It took them about a week to find out that Gore was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Oregon.  And, opps, there are documents.  The FBI refused to investigate.  The media refused to investigate.  Eventually Gore apparently bribed his way out of trouble.  Sound familiar?

This is very similar to what happened to Tiger Woods.  He gets into a strange automobile accident just before Thanksgiving and most people are only worried about whether he was injured.  But, for the first time, the main stream media actually started to “look” at Mr. Woods and oh my, what a mess.   Not exactly the warm and fuzzy family man that was being presented to everyone.  

Two predictions.  First, Al Gore is going to go the route of Tiger Woods.  All of the ugliness is going to come out and it will be very bad indeed.  Someone doesn’t pull a stunt like Gore did in Oregon on an isolated basis.   This is so outrageous that there has to be a long pattern of similar behavior.  Second, at some point this will happen to Obama.  It may already be happening because of the Rod Blagojevich trial.  Blago’s assistant testified that Blago believed that Obama was in on the fix to nominate Valerie Jarrett as the new Senator from Illinois.  Why wouldn’t he believe it?  It is consistent with everything he knew about Obama.

As Al Gore is now finding out, once the press gets on the trail, the hounds get excited and they don’t stop until the rabbit is dead.  Barack Obama may be about to learn the same thing.  The only difference is that there are a lot more targets of opportunity with regard to Obama than nearly anyone else.  The rumors about Rahm Emmanuel being out at the White House are very significant.  Someone with his lust for power would never leave willingly.  He either got an offer he can’t afford to turn down, or he is exiting stage right before the curtain falls.  The McChrystal affair is even more damaging.  McChrystal let down his guard and admitted that he thought Obama was an incompetent boob.  McChrystal is a lot of things, but incompetent is not on the list.  The real problem with what he said is that it was all too easy to believe.  Maybe, just maybe, the press will at least pretened to actually check Obama out.  Once they start looking, they will quickly find out that nothing checks out.  That, is the real danger for Obama.   

TDM

The Obama administration made a serious mistake in firing McChrystal.   A lot of  people were telling Obama he had no choice, because McChrystal put him in a box, but it is still a serious mistake.  The Obama administration thinks that by immediately naming Petraeus to replace McChrystal that this problem is solved and the story will just fade away.  They are wrong.  The problem is that while Obama can fire McChrystal, the appointment of General Petraeus to take his place requires Senate confirmation.  That means hearings, and these hearings could be spectacular political theatre.  While General Petraeus has a lot of support from both Republicans and Democrats, Obama’s conduct of the war does not.

The liberal left is going to be asking the General hard questions about whether or not the war is winnable and why shouldn’t we just give up.  Liberal Democrats have a long history of being willing to walk away from a war without any regard to the consequences.  Numerous experts predicted the humanitarian nightmare that developed in Vietnam after we left.  Many people estimate more than 3,000,000 people were killed.  The liberals knew that, but, since they weren’t American troops with the casualty counts broadcast on CBS, they didn’t care.  Just recently Democrats were demanding Bush to withdraw from Iraq, regardless of circumstances.  They wasted the last two years of his President trying to cut off funding for the Iraq war.  Even their own experts predicted that Iraq would have descended into chaos with massive loss of civilian life and an immediate resurgence of al Qaeda if we withdrew, but they didn’t care.  In fact both Barack Obama and Harry Reid declared the surge, led by … General Petraeus … to have failed before it even began.

Republicans are going to be taking the exact opposite approach.  McCain, for example, is going to remind the President that he is the one who said that winning in Afghanistan is vital to our national security.  He will remind us that Obama described Afghanistan as the necessary war.    McCain is going to demand that we do whatever it takes to win.  There is zero chance Obama will do that.

Obama, who has no leadership skills at all, will try to split the baby.   He will try to appease the left by saying he intends to stick to the 2011 withdrawal deadline and he will try to appeal to the right by saying he put in the General who won the war in Iraq.  (The same war he declared lost, before it was won).  The only thing certain is that neither group is going to be satisfied with his decision.  He will not withdraw soon enough to appease the liberal left, and he will not provide enough additional manpower and firepower to give Petraeus what he needs to succeed.

Afghanistan will continue to deteriorate at an even faster pace.  Even though the main stream media will try and pretend that Obama showed leadership by firing McChrystal our enemies know the truth.  The war in Afghanistan is being micro-managed by incompetent fools that are despised even by our own commanders.   They will view, correctly, the firing of McChrystal and the embarrassment to Obama as a major victory.  They will be energized by this clear evidence that they are winning.  It would take a strong President to overcome this.  Unfortunately we have Obama.  I hope I am wrong, but it would appear that General Petraeus has been chosen to lead the modern version of “The Charge of The Light Brigade.”

Did anyone notice that Obama went out of his way to say he didn’t fire McChrystal because his feelings were hurt.  Ah…actually…that’s exactly why he fired McChrystal.  We were already in serious trouble in Afghanistan.  Thanks to Obama’s brilliant leadership I think we may just snatch defeat from the jaws of failure.

TDM

This story is a huge embarrassment to the Obama administration.  He will probably fire McChrystal, but the damage is done.  One thing is crystal clear, the top ranking military commander personally chosen by Obama to right our ship in Afghanistan is either a raving lunatic, or he is sick and tired of dealing with raving lunatics:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/22/latest-mcchrystal-developments/

McChrystal cannot survive this and stay in the military.  But he can resign and retire.  He could pull a Palin and make millions traveling around the country telling everyone exactly what he thinks of Obama.  That is the real problem for Obama.  If he accepts McChrystal’s resignation, he no longer has any control over what McChrystal will do or say.  Active duty officers have to follow orders.  Officers who have retired can say what they want.  Common sense says that Obama will fire McChrystal, but don’t be surprised if Obama doesn’t do the expected.  Obama has a hard time making a difficult decision.  So far, with regard to Afghanistan, Obama has been paralyzed with fear over having to make any decision.  When confronted with the request to add more troops Obama took several weeks to make a non-decision.  McChrystal is one tough guy.  I don’t think he will accept a demotion.  He will either resign and move on, or go back to his command.  He, unlike Obama, is someone who can make a decision.  Right now I would bet that there are full scale damage control meetings at the White House.  Since just shooting McChrystal is not an option, they are trying to decide how to mitigate the damage.  No matter what they decide, Obama has been severely damaged. 

The word from the troops is that they are kind of glad to see McChrystal in trouble, because they hate the rules of engagement.  McChrystal has to know that and his past record indicates that this was unlikely to have been his idea.  He was definitely a hard core take no prisoners kind of guy, until he took over in Afghanistan.  So what changed; his orders or his outlook?  All McChrystal has to say to make this absolutely impossible for Obama is that the rules of engagement were Obama’s idea and he was just following a direct order he despised.  If he does that, Obama will lose the last smidgen of respect from our troops on the ground.

On final thought:  McChrystal said he voted for Obama.  That leaves three choices.  One, he is a liar.  Two, he voted for Obama because he is that ambitious.  Three, he actually is stupid. 

Latest and greatest.  McChrystal is out, replaced by Petraeus.  Probably the best option for Obama under the circumstances.   But it doesn’t matter.  It just make Obama’s mismanagement of the Afghanistan war the hottest topic.  Interestingly while most people felt Obama should fire McChrystal, at the same time they all said McChrystal is a very good commander and that this is a symptom of poor management by the White House.  Even MSNBC has figured that out.

http://www.foxnews.com/

TDM

We are missing something here.  McChrystal has a long record of breaking things where ever he was posted.   His command post in Iraq was a black ops operation, where he was famous (infamous) for hunting down key terrorists.   He also was in charge of the prison at Camp Nama, where much of the alleged prisoner abuse took place.  This is one hard guy.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1897542,00.html

Then, he takes over in Afghanistan and starts pushing rules of engagement that are limp wristed and silly.  He fervently enforces them.  There is nothing about McChrystal’s background that would suggest he would go soft on anyone.  My guess is that the Obama administration ordered him to “sell the soft war approach” and it stuck in his craw.   It just may be that McChrystal couldn’t take it any more:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/mcchrystals-real-offense-96873364.html

It will be extremely dangerous for Obama if McChrystal is required to testify before congress.  I am sure the Obama administration will try desperately to prevent that.  I am not sure they can succeed, because this is far too public and just too juicy to ignore.  Perhaps McChrystal lost one too many good men because of the rules of engagement demanded by a Commander in Chief he cannot respect.

TDM

The following article is from the Australian Broadcasting Company.  It refers to an interview in the Rolling Stone:

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/22/2933713.htm?section=justin

 The problem for this story is that it is too believable.  Why would anyone be surprised that an uneducated, lazy, left-wing radical community organizer from Chicago falls somewhat short of Churchill in the leadership category.  This creates huge problems for Obama.  If he fires McChrystal, he just gives him more air time.  In addition, if McChrystal is this vocal while still in command, just imagine what he will say if he is relieved.  Obama will try to silence McChrystal, and he may succeed…for a while…but the truth is there for everyone to see.  McChrystal basically threw both Obama, Biden and the entire Obama administration under the bus.   Obama has to relieve McChrystal.  Even if we agree with him, this is a level of insubordination that no President can tolerate.

 Here’s the good news.  I know many of us are concerned over Obama’s plans for a complete liberal takeover of our country.  That is, frankly, what he has in mind, but it ain’t going to happen.  It’s real easy.  If you are this bad as a leader with regard to the war in Afghanistan and the BP oil spill, there is zero chance you are a competent leader anywhere else.   Odds are really high that in the end, Obama will accomplish nothing at all.  Instead, there will be such a strong backlash that this country may be spared liberal leadership for the next generation.  In every democracy where liberals have been given complete power they have screwed it up big time.  Ultimately, they get thrown out of office with very little ceremony.

 Obama is beyond tone deaf politically.  He even praised gay fathers during his traditional Father’s Day proclamation.  He nominated Kagan for the Supreme Court, assuming that her liberal baggage wouldn’t matter.  But, don’t be surprised if the Kagan nomination is going, going, gone.  The problem is that she literally compared the NRA to the KKK.  Imagine you’re a Democrat.  You are already in serious trouble with regard to this falls election.  Now you’re being asked to support a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court that is virulently opposed by the NRA.  The Democrats are so afraid of the NRA they tried to carve them out of the new campaign finance legislation. 

 Obama and Biden have already announced this as the Summer of Recovery.  I really think they meant jobs, but that is absurd.  But, I think they did name it right.  This will be the Summer of Recovery.  It will be the Summer when the U.S. wakes up and throws the bums out.  We are going to see a full scale political revolt this fall, less than five months away.   That right folks.  In less than five months and Obama becomes a lame duck President with a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a congress with a Tea Party attitude.

 Update:   McChrystal has been ordered home.  Watch the fun begin.  Some Republican is going to call him before congress and ask him some pointed questions.  Even Democrats are likely to join in the session.  Democrats will try to paint McChrystal as a rouge commander, trying to blame Obama for his own failures.  Republicans will ask him if he had the support he needed to win the war.  This could be high drama.  The war is not popular with the liberal left, and Republicans are not happen with the way Obama is handling it.  McChrystal is likely to catch it from both sides.  This could be an early start to the Fireworks season.

Lately the speeches by Obama remind me of the vuvuzela horns  at the World Cup Soccer matches.   Like the horns, his speeches are really annoying, difficult to ignore and impossible to understand.  It wasn’t that this last speech was so bad; the problem is that it is no longer possible, even for die-hard liberals, to pretend that Obama is competent.   Obama already has strong disapproval from 42% of Americans.  Up until now that was primarily Republicans and Independents.  But this speech was so bad that the entire media turned on him over night.  We are now going to see a full-fledged media feeding frenzy.  Bush, on his worst day, never got hammered this badly by MSNBC:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/15/msnbc_trashes_obamas_address_compared_to_carter_i_dont_sense_executive_command.html

The cork is off the bottle.  Up until now the main stream media has tried very hard to avoid criticizing Obama.  All it took was one network to flip.   Don’t be surprised if the rest of the networks quickly jump on the band wagon.  How ironic that it would be that MSNBC, the network that did the most to put Obama in office, is now leading the charge to destroy him.  Poetic justice.

The LA Times, which typically fawned over Obama, literally considered his speech to be a joke.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/obama-speech-react.html

The deal he allegedly cut with BP is going to result in outrage when people understand what it means.  I guarantee you that BP is not going to put any money into this escrow account without a provision that somehow caps their liability.  If they did do that, they are beyond stupid.  In addition, this is going to be funded over time:   

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/politics/17obama.html?ref=global-home

Actually, this is a good deal and is the right way to handle this, but the problem is that Obama has been preaching execution by the harshest possible method and he just gave BP house arrest followed by probation.   If he had done this 45 days ago, it might have worked.  Now, it is too little, too late and no one is impressed.   In the meantime, the oil  leak goes on and on and on.   At this point the only thing certain is that Obama has no clue about how to handle this.   He has destroyed what little credibility he had left. 

I think we are going to see immediate and wholesale abandonment of Obama by Democratic politicians.  Notice how Congressman Bob Etheridge, from South Carolina, lost his cool and assaulted a student because he dared ask him if he supported Obama’s policies.  That is not exactly a strong endorsement.    Even his strongest supporters have resorted to once again blaming everything on Bush.  They don’t even try to argue that Obama is doing a good job.   But, no one is listening to that any more.  The bash Bush days are gone forever:

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/06/fallout-from-spill.html

Watch for the White House go into full panic mode.   The last U.S. President to have this kind of opposition from his own party was LBJ.  Don’t be surprised to see Obama end up like Herbert Hoover.  Holed up in the White House, afraid to move, and literally booed out of office.    It’s really easy:  if you’re a left-wing radical, liberal President and you’ve lost Keith Olbermann, what’s left?

Our real fear should be that in an act of desperation he will pull a “wag the dog” type of stunt to try and salvage his Presidency.   In the meantime, they recently came up with a filter for the vuvuzela horns.  How about an Obama filter?

TDM

There is a new book out that will be released on June 14, 2010.  The title is “THE MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT.”  This book is coming out at a time when people are already upset with Obama and equally upset with the main stream media.  There have been other books about Obama that have been largely ignored.  However, this book at least appears to be very well documented.  If it only generates questions, the results could be very damaging to Obama.  At some point, even the main stream media has to at least address this:

http://noisyroom.net/blog/2010/06/14/barack-obama-unmasked/

The real problem with this book is that it is all too believable.  While one can discount any one aspect of Obama’s background, it is hard to disregard the overwhelming evidence that Obama’s view of America differs substantially from the rest of us.

I strongly believe that the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives equally love their country.  They just often have a significant difference of opinion with regard to how to make it better.  For example: after 9-11 the entire U.S. Congress gathered together to sign God bless America.  Regardless of what has happened since that time, I am convinced that they were united in love of this country at that moment. 

This is why this book is so damaging to Obama.  I believe that most Democrats and even most liberals are totally unaware of the extremist ties to Obama.  They don’t believe it because to them, this would be unthinkable.  But, that does not make it untrue.   I know this from firsthand experience.  Even conservative friends are often shocked  when they learn the truth about Obama’s background.   This book is coming out at a time when Obama is already on the ropes because of his obvious incompetence in handling the BP oil spill.

Today he literally resorted to stamping his feet and demanding that BP come up with a better plan to stop the oil leak.   I would not be surprised to see BP just declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy and just hand the problem over to Obama.  “Here, genius, you fix it!”   Obama is focusing full time on the BP oil spill, when he is not playing golf.  He may ignore this book to his peril.  I wouldn’t bet a nickel on the main stream media paying any attention to this book, but the title alone is so shocking it may be impossible to ignore.

TDM

The Rod Blagojevich trial is under way.  This is going to be a real circus.  The first witness, Alonzo Monk,  on the first day was bad for Blagojevich.  But, this witness may be even worse for Obama:

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/US-Blagojevich-Trial/2010/06/09/id/361562

The problem with this testimony is that it clearly reveals who Tony Rezko is and how he operated.   That is devastating for Obama, because he had a close personal relationship with Rezko.  Rezko even lived next door and cut a sweetheart deal so Obama could get his pretty new house.  Recall that he is now serving time for corruption.  Nice neighbor!

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4315880&page=1

It seems pretty obvious that Blagojevich is guilty as sin.  There are, after all, all those tape recordings.  But, Blagojevich’s attorney is arguing that this is just typical Illinois politics and since they can’t prove that he got any actual money, it was not illegal.  In other words:  “this kind of quid pro quo is ok, as long as there no actual dough received as part of the quo.”  There is the problem for Obama.  In effect the Blagojevich defense is that he didn’t do anything different that what was done by and for Obama.  He has a point! 

So far the main stream media has taken the position that none of the allegations about Obama matter because this is just politics.  But, the testimony by Blagojevich’s aide shows that with Rezko involved, it is hard to imagine Illinois politics without corruption.  In order to believe that Obama is not personally corrupt, you have to believe that Rezko treated him differently than he did anyone else.   

At some point the odor of corruption emanating from Obama has to be somewhat noticeable even by the olfactory challenged main stream media.

TDM