During World War II British intelligence ran operation Mincemeat to trick Germany into thinking the U.S. was going to invade Greece instead of Sicily.  They planted false papers on a cadaver, named him Major William Martin, and arranged for the body to be “discovered.”  Incredibly the German commanders bought this hook, line and sinker and diverted troops to Greece.  At the time Winston Churchill was stunned that the German high command bought this, because it was really obvious that the Allies were going to invade Sicily.

At least Major Martin “looked” like the real thing.  Barack Obama never even looked like a leader.  He gave one speech, almost certainly written by someone else and liberals fell in love.  He “looked” like a leader and that was all that was required.   Obama had a paper thin resume and there wasn’t even any paper to back it up.   Now, six years later, the man who had zero accomplishments prior to running for President has zero accomplishments as President.  Why would anyone have expected something different?  What about Barack Obama’s personal history would cause one to expect something else?

Germany paid a high price for believing that Major William Martin was the real deal.  I fear this country will pay an even higher price for believing in the Obama myth.  In the meantime at least some people in the main stream media seem to be catching on.  They are beginning to question whether Obama is as sharp as they assumed.  As for me, as for me, I remain astonished that so many people believed and still believe in the man who never was.

TDM

Sometimes I watch the main stream media with absolute amazement.  With all the hyperventilating about the Bergdahl for Taliban exchange, no one seems to be addressing the single most important issue.  Why did President Obama do this?   A President of the United States has a right and a duty to do the necessary to protect the country.  That is the reason a President on occasion may violate the law and even the constitution.  The duty to protect the country is absolute.  Lincoln is considered to be a great president even though he clearly violated both the constitution and the law.  Some may argue whether or not it was necessary for him to do some of these things but it is indisputable that the reason Lincoln made these decisions was because he felt they were necessary to save the country.  FDR also violated both the constitution and the law prior to and during World War II.  Again some may argue as to whether or not some of these actions were necessary but it is indisputable that FDR made these decisions because he felt the national security was at stake.

Bill Clinton was guilty of perjury, yet he was acquitted by the Senate because Democratic Senators did not consider this to be a serious enough crime.  The majority of Republican Senators felt it was serious enough.  So I guess to some extent there is a different standard for Republicans and Democrats.  Other Presidents have probably violated some laws but this was ignored because it did not impact national security. This is not a minor issue.  In making this deal President Obama may have damaged national security.

Unlike the other scandals there is no difficulty linking this one to President Obama.  He admitted that he personally made the decision.  He said he did so because Bergdahl’s health appeared to have been deteriorating.  How is Bergdahl’s health a threat to national security?   How is anything that happens to Bergdahl a threat to national security.  Yes, we are glad to see him back home, regardless of what he did.  But there are other American citizens held hostage all over the world.  No one is arguing that failure to get them released represents a threat to national security.  A sad situation, yes.  A human tragedy, yes.  A threat to national security, no.

The President of the United States has the same duty to follow the law as everyone else, unless his higher duty to protect the country overrides.   Where is the higher duty here?   If anything, this decision harmed national security.  If breaking a law, for purely political purposes to do something harmful to national security is not a high crime and misdemeanor what would be required to meet that standard?

The question that must be asked is why did President Obama do this.  If he doesn’t have a satisfactory answer the constitution provides guidance on what to do.

TDM

Some misguided people have critized President Obama for trading 5 senior Taliban Commanders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.  They are wrong.  President Obama has brilliantly invented a new word.  A “Bergdahl” is a trade so bad that it defies imagination.  For example if the Miami Heat traded their entire starting line-up to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Donald Sterling.

TDM

On October 8, 1871 the Peshtigo fire broke out.  It was the worst fire in U.S. history.  At least 1,500 people were killed and some people estimate the real toll could be closer to 2,500.  Over 1,875 square miles were burned.  Yet most people have never heard of the Peshtigo fire.  The reason is that it happened on the same day as the Chicago fire.  The main stream media of the day was too interested in reporting on the Chicago fire to bother with what was happening in Northern Wisconsin.

Hillary Clinton is in serious trouble.  Her never-ending campaign just released her “Hillary the Great” book in anticipation of the 2016 election.  We can be positive that anything written about Benghazi was approved by a panel of experts.   The Benghazi chapter was leaked to her strongest supporters to put the best possible spin on the subject.  That means that this is the best “answer” available.  The theory is that while “some” of the people who attacked our compound “may” have been terrorists, “some” of them “may” have been influenced by the video.  That is patently absurd.  It doesn’t even pass the giggle test.  So why use it?

The obvious conclusion is that the truth is even worse.  Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes are going down in flames.  Something must be done.  Wait!  What if the Clintonians can find a “bigger” story to distract attention from the Select Committee investigation of Benghazi?  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Hillary met privately with Obama on Thursday.  On Friday he fired General Shinseki and then Jay Carney resigned.  The VA Scandal story went nuclear.

Then on Saturday he announced the swap of five Taliban Commanders for Sgt. Bergdahl.  This is the same deal Leon Panetta wouldn’t even consider.  Is this all a coincidence?  Is this just another example of Obama being naïve, incompetent and stupid?  Or is there something else going on?  Perhaps it is just me, but this is starting to look like the modern version of the “Peshtigo Principle.”

TDM

When we started this week it was already pretty obvious that Barack Obama is one of the weakest Presidents ever.  In case you doubt this, check out the following report from the Voice of Russia.  Granted one should not expect favorable press from the Voice of Russia, but the problem here is that this is all too believable:

http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_29/Jen-Psaki-symbol-of-Obamas-administration-weak-foreign-policy-1625/

Jennifer Psaki has already become a symbol of Obama’s cabinet weak foreign policy. Thus, unsurprisingly, some bloggers compare her dialogs with an AP writer Matthew Lee to live performances on Jon Stewart’s satirical show. Indeed, Jen Psaki’s ludicrous notions regarding Victoria Nuland’s bad habit of using foul language, or the mysterious ‘carousel voting’ in eastern Ukraine, or her embarrassing ‘selfie’ with #UnitedForUkraine hashtag, put into question the State Department spokesperson’s professional competency and political sanity as well as of those who hired her.

I wish I could say the Voice of Russia got it all wrong.

While our foreign affairs are beyond pathetic things are even worse at home.  We had negative GDP growth this quarter.  Democrats promptly blamed the cold winter caused by global warming.  The VA scandal is so bad that Obama actually fired someone.  Then Jay Carney announced he was leaving.  We don’t know if Carney was fired or he was he just sick and tired of defending the indefensible.  The Select Committee on Benghazi is heating up and the only defense Hillary can think of is to try and blame the video. If that’s the best she’s got, she is in far more trouble than you can imagine.

All this was bad enough, but there’s more.  Obama cut a deal to free five Guantanamo inmates in exchange for one U.S. soldier.  The first response must be relief that this American soldier is back with his family.  That is obviously a very good thing.  But unfortunately it is not that simple.  According to Fox News the men released from Guantanamo were high level Taliban commanders.  According to CNN they were taxi-cab drivers who got lost in 2002 and were accidentally picked up by American forces.  Sometimes I wonder if CNN and FOX are even covering the same story. But regardless of who they were, the Taliban definitely wanted them back.  The entire world now knows that Obama will negotiate with terrorists.

The Taliban are celebrating tonight because of the release of those five prisoners.  The family of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is celebrating his release to U.S. forces.  We all celebrate his return.  However, we must also ask a very simple question.  Who will be celebrating tomorrow?

TDM

During the Bush administration the liberal left and the main stream media went absolutely nuts because Valerie Plame was supposedly exposed as a CIA agent.   Releasing the name of a CIA clandestine officer is a felony.  A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed because of the seriousness of the allegation.  Fitzgerald soon learned that Valerie Plame was not a clandestine CIA officer at all, so there was no potential for a crime.  He also learned that the true source of the leak was Richard Armitage, a State Department official.  But the left were not interested in pursuing Richard Armitage because he had been openly opposed to the Iraq war.  What’s a special prosecutor to do?   Easy, Fitzgerald continued his investigation of a non-crime and eventually caught “Scooter” Libby in a perjury trap.  Libby remembered a conversation differently than Matthew Cooper about something that didn’t actually matter.  As a result he was convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison.  George W. Bush commuted his sentence, but Libby remains a convicted felon unable to practice law.

Now we have the all too real release of the name of an actual clandestine CIA officer.  This is not just any officer; this was our Station Chief in Afghanistan.  The White House accidentally released his name to reporters who promptly sent that list around the world.   Then, to compound the error, the White House submitted a substitute list, with just this guy’s name missing, to make sure that none of our enemies would miss the opportunity.  At best the person who did this was criminally negligent.  At worst……

There should be a special prosecutor appointed immediately to investigate.  This special prosecutor should start interviewing top Obama administration officials under oath.  Odds are very high that this special prosecutor will find a lot more important things than “Scooter Libby” getting confused over where he heard information that didn’t matter about Valerie Plame who wasn’t clandestine and who also didn’t matter.

Of course none of this will happen.  In the minds of a liberal, a felony is only a felony when it is done by a Democrat.  That is why fat cat Democrats get caught channeling millions in illegal contributions to Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid and no one cares.  But Dinesh D’Souza gets caught giving $20,000 in a failed Senatorial campaign and the DOJ considers it to be the crime of the century.

If this does not bother you than you are probably a liberal, but then you probably don’t believe me anyway, because you still know in your heart of hearts that Cheney is an evil man.

TDM

On November 19, 1863 Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address.  It is unfortunate that too few people understood the significance of what Lincoln said.   If you want to read the full text, here is the link:

http://www.d.umn.edu/~rmaclin/gettysburg-address.html

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain

It is impossible to improve on what Lincoln said, we can only pause to remember how very different this was from what we are hearing today.  I fought in the Vietnam War.  I understand how deeply it hurts when your country decides, after careful reflection, “that it wasn’t worth it after all.”  That is the opposite of what Lincoln had in mind.  It is the opposite of truly honoring sacrifice.  I fear we are making the same mistake today.

The only real way to honor those who have given their lives in combat is to rededicate ourselves to the cause for which they died.  Words of memoriam, without such a commitment are meaningless.

TDM

As Townhall pointed it, liberals were bragging about the VA as an example of how great socialized medicine works.   Perhaps the best example of this was by Paul Krugman:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/medicare-and-the-va/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1

You see, we actually have a real live case of impressive cost control in health care: the VA system.

Krugman was right about one thing, the VA is a perfect example of how socialized medicine works.  If ObamaCare is allowed to continue we will all experience the VA level of service.  If you doubt that, read the following article about the NHS from Forbes published in 2013.  You won’t see this type of report in the main stream media:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottatlas/2013/07/05/happy-birthday-to-great-britains-increasingly-scandalous-national-health-service/

Waits for care are shocking in the NHS, frequently exposed by British media reports, and long proven by facts, yet they go virtually unreported in the U.S.

Access to medical care is so poor in the NHS that the government was compelled to issue England’s 2010 “NHS Constitution” in which it was declared that no patient should wait beyond 18 weeks for treatment – four months – after GP referral.

Just think about what this means.  You visit your doctor on June 2, 2014. You find out you have cancer and need surgery.  Great news!  You have been moved to the top of the list.  Your first appointment with the surgeon is October 6, 2014.  But wait, this gets even better.  Your surgeon is not actually available on October 6, 2014, so your diagnosis is changed so that this delay doesn’t get reported.  That is exactly what Forbes reported happened at the NHS:

BBC subsequently discovered that many patients initially assessed as needing surgery were later re-categorized by the hospital so that they could be removed from waiting lists to distort the already unconscionable delays. Royal College of Surgeons President Norman Williams, calling this “outrageous,” charged that hospitals are cutting their waiting lists by artificially raising thresholds.

When you think about it, this is brilliant.  If you delay surgery long enough the patient dies.  Then you report no delay because dead people don’t need surgery.

Isn’t this remarkably similar to what is happening at the VA. The problems at the VA should be no surprise.  It would be more of a shock if this wasn’t happening.  This is what happens when a government bureaucracy tries to run a health care system. It has been happening for years in the UK.  It has been happening for years at the VA.   It is what we can expect under ObamaCare if we are stupid enough to let this happen.  Instead under ObamaCare it will be much worse.

TDM

Most of us, old enough, remember the song “Send in the Clowns.”  It was actually based on an old circus saying that if the act wasn’t going well, then send in the clowns to do some jokes.  Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi chose the same tactic with regard to the Select Committee on Benghazi.  She is quite literally sending in the clowns:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/nancy-pelosi-benghazi-john-boehner-panel-106937.html

Boehner, on the other hand, named some very serious people:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/boehner-names-members-benghazi-select-committee_791211.html

So let’s look at the starting lineups:

Democrats

Elijah Cummings

Adam Smith

Adam Schiff

Linda Sanchez

Tammy Duckworth

All are on record as saying there is nothing to investigate and this is a Republican waste of time and money.  All are famous for giving Democratic talking points instead of answers.  They were clearly given the assignment to defend the Obama administration against the other committee members.

Republicans

Susan Brooks

Trey Gowdy

Jim Jordan

Mike Pompeo

Martha Roby

Peter Roskam

Lynn Westmoreland

The Republicans are all attorneys and several are former prosecutors.  It would be hard to image a committee with such an obvious mismatch.  If the people want to see a political circus, the Democrats have the upper hand.  If they want to see someone drill down and get the truth, the Republicans are in a far superior position.  I think it is pretty safe to say that any additional information is bad for the Obama administration or they would have released it a long time ago.

I think the Democrats have made an enormous mistake.  Public sentiment is strongly in favor of getting answers.  Few people believe the Obama administration is telling the truth about anything.  In addition, the timing is terrible, for Democrats.  The House is going into summer recess.  All of the network shows are going into the re-run mode.  Even American Idol and Dancing with the Stars are done.  That means there is really nothing else happening, that is remotely interesting, other than baseball and the Benghazi hearings.

Go ahead.  Send in the clowns.  Do you think even CNN will buy it?

TDM

Every President seems to come into office promising to fix the VA once and for all.  Obama was no different.  He actually increased VA spending.  He also appointed General Eric Shinsecki, a retired four star general and former Chief of Staff of the Army.    One would have expected better results.  Instead we are discovering that some people, actually a lot of people, at the VA are falsifying records to create the illusion of providing good service.   The situation is so bad that there is bi-partisan outrage.   No one in either party even pretends that this is acceptable.

I doubt seriously that this particular problem was actually Obama’s fault.  I am not sure there is much he could have done differently.  But, it is still his problem for one simple reason.  At a time when everyone is demanding answers from someone they can trust, no one trusts Obama.  I haven’t heard anyone in either party even pretend that Obama is capable of fixing this.  They probably won’t even ask his opinion.  They certainly won’t ask for his leadership.

Obama could fire Shinseki and it wouldn’t matter.  He could appoint someone else to investigate and it wouldn’t matter.  He could give a public speech on why he is outraged and it wouldn’t matter.  Actually, he has already tried some of this.  Today Obama held another, press briefing to say he was on top of this.  Nice, but he said the same thing back in 2008.  Nothing Obama can say or do is remotely relative.  That is the problem.

The VA is the second largest government department, after the Department of Defense.  It employs nearly 280,000 people.  The 2012 budget was $132 billion and the proposed 2014 budget is $157.2 billion.   If money could fix the VA it would have been fixed.   If adding more people or spending more money on great computer programs could fix the VA it would have been fixed.  Obama is hardly the first President to try and fix the VA and fail miserably.  The real lesson here is that government management of the VA is the problem.  As long as we rely on the federal government to manage the VA health care system we are going to see the same results.

The big lie that Obama told was that big government works.  It doesn’t.  It never has.  It never will.  It hasn’t worked anytime, anyplace it has been tried.  The bigger the government the bigger the problem.  That is why the VA is so important.  It is the biggest of the big and it is a total mess, again.  The real problem with the VA is that the government is trying to fix the problem.  Obama is a case study on why big government has not, will not and cannot work.  It also doesn’t help that Obama was so self-righteous about it:

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/378322/obama-2007-time-end-deplorable-conditions-some-va-hospitals-jim-geraghty

Obama 2007:

“After seven years of an Administration that has stretched our military to the breaking point, ignored deplorable conditions at some VA hospitals, and neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes, America’s veterans deserve a President who will fight for them not just when it’s easy or convenient, but every hour of every day for the next four years.”

Obama 2012:

“For the first time ever, we’ve made military families and veterans a top priority not just at DOD, not just at the VA, but across the government.”

Obama 2014:

What was that again, I just learned about it on the news? (Ok.  I paraphrased this)

The VA scandal matters for another very important reason.  The sharks are in the water, they are circling in desperate search of prey.  The main stream media is on it and they are openly soliciting anyone who works at the VA to contact them and tell the story.  They did not do that with regard to Benghazi.  They did not do that with regard to Fast & Furious.  They did not do that with regard to the IRS targeting scandal.  But they are sure doing it now and it won’t stop with the VA.  For the first time whistle blowers in the Obama administration have been given the all clear to come out of the woodwork and they are going to arrive in droves.  This will be similar to what happened when Tiger Wood’s wife chased him off the road with an 8 iron.  This type of story, like a big forest fire, will start generating its own wind.  The Camel’s nose is under the Obama administration tent and it will never ever be the same.

TDM