It’s Tuesday, May 1st, 2012….The Obamao’s favorite annual holiday….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of Bill Meisen, despite the senior brass refusing to stand tall and acknowledge the obvious, it appears the lower ranks aren’t afraid to call out The Dear Misleader for attempting to take credit for their kill:

SEALs slam Obama for using them as ‘ammunition’ in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign

 

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign. The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’. In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.

Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call. ‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice – it was a broader team effort.’

Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that Mr Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’

Mr Obama has faced criticism even from allies about his decision to make a campaign ad about the bin Laden raid. Arianna Huffington, an outspoken liberal who runs the left-leaning Huffington Post website, roundly condemned it. She told CBS: ‘We should celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It’s one thing to have an NBC special from the Situation Room… all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.’

Campaigning in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mr Romney responded to a shouted question by a reporter by saying: ‘Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.’

A serving SEAL Team member said: ‘Obama wasn’t in the field, at risk, carrying a gun. As president, at every turn he should be thanking the guys who put their lives on the line to do this. He does so in his official speeches because he speechwriters are smart. ‘But the more he tries to take the credit for it, the more the ground operators are saying, “Come on, man!” It really didn’t matter who was president. At the end of the day, they were going to go.’

Chris Kyle, a former SEAL sniper with 160 confirmed and another 95 unconfirmed kills to his credit, said: ‘The operation itself was great and the nation felt immense pride. It was great that we did it. ‘But bin Laden was just a figurehead. The war on terror continues. Taking him out didn’t really change anything as far as the war on terror is concerned and using it as a political attack is a cheap shot.

‘In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander- in-chief so his secret is safe.’

Senior military figures have said that Admiral William McRaven, a former SEAL who was then head of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) made the decision to take bin Laden out. Tactical decisions were delegated even further down the chain of command.

Mr Kyle added: ‘He’s trying to say that Romney wouldn’t have made the same call? Anyone who is patriotic to this country would have made that exact call, Democrat or Republican. Obama is taking more credit than he is due but it’s going to get him some pretty good mileage.’

A former intelligence official who was serving in the US government when bin Laden was killed said that the Obama administration knew about the al-Qaeda leader’s whereabouts in October 2010 but delayed taking action and risked letting him escape. ‘In the end, Obama was forced to make a decision and do it. He knew that if he didn’t do it the political risks in not taking action were huge. Mitt Romney would have made the call but he would have made it earlier – as would George W. Bush.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137636/SEALs-slam-Obama-using-ammunition-bid-credit-bin-Laden-killing-election-campaign.html

 As for the basis of the Clinton-Obama claim Mitt Romney wouldn’t have put two behind Osama’s ear….and one in his eye….here’s the clip in question; we report, you decide:

Yeah….we couldn’t catch it either; then again, it’s not like Slick Willy would….

….lie about something to America’s face!

For more on the subject, we turn to former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s commentary in the WSJ:

Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights

It’s hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others.

 

The first anniversary of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed Osama bin Laden brings the news that President Obama plans during the coming campaign to exploit the bragging rights to the achievement. That plan invites scrutiny that is unlikely to benefit him.

Consider the events surrounding the operation. A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president’s celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: “The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out.”

Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven’s, not the president’s. Moreover, the president does not seem to have addressed at all the possibility of seizing material with intelligence value—which may explain his disclosure immediately following the event not only that bin Laden was killed, but also that a valuable trove of intelligence had been seized, including even the location of al Qaeda safe-houses. That disclosure infuriated the intelligence community because it squandered the opportunity to exploit the intelligence that was the subject of the boast.

The only reliable weapon that any administration has against the current threat to this country is intelligence. Every operation like the one against bin Laden (or the one that ended the career of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen and al Qaeda propagandist killed in a drone attack last September) dips into the reservoir of available intelligence. Refilling that reservoir apparently is of no importance to an administration that, after an order signed by the president on his second day in office, has no classified interrogation program—and whose priorities are apparent from its swift decision to reopen investigations of CIA operators for alleged abuses in connection with the classified interrogation program that once did exist.

While contemplating how the killing of bin Laden reflects on the president, consider the way he emphasized his own role in the hazardous mission accomplished by SEAL Team 6:

“I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as I continued our (“Our”?!?  This must have been while The Obamao was golfing.) broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community I was briefed . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . And finally last week I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . .”

That seems a jarring formulation coming from a man who, when first elected, was asked which president he would model himself on and replied, Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln, on the night after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender ended the Civil War, delivered from the window of the White House a speech that mentioned his own achievements not at all, but instead looked forward to the difficulties of reconstruction and called for black suffrage—a call that would doom him because the audience outside the White House included a man who muttered that Lincoln had just delivered his last speech. It was John Wilkes Booth.

The man from whom President Obama has sought incessantly to distance himself, George W. Bush, also had occasion during his presidency to announce to the nation a triumph of intelligence: the capture of Saddam Hussein. He called that success “a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq.” He attributed it to “the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers. . . . Their work continues, and so do the risks.”

He did mention himself at the end: “Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.”

That is not to say that great leaders, including presidents, have not placed themselves at the center of great events. But generally it has been to accept responsibility for failure.

Lincoln took responsibility in August 1862 for failures that had been attributed to General George McClellan—eventually sacked for incompetence—and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Lincoln told a crowd that McClellan was not at fault for seeking more than Stanton could give, and “I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged upon the Secretary of War.”

Dwight Eisenhower is famous for having penned a statement to be issued in anticipation of the failure of the Normandy invasion that reads in relevant part: “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

A week later, when the success of the invasion was apparent, Eisenhower saluted the Allied Expeditionary Forces: “One week ago this morning there was established through your coordinated efforts our first foothold in northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill and effectiveness . . . your accomplishments . . . have exceeded my brightest hopes.

Eisenhower did mention himself at the end: “I truly congratulate you upon a brilliantly successful beginning. . . . Liberty loving people everywhere would today like to join me in saying to you, ‘I am proud of you.'”

Such examples are worth remembering every time President Obama claims bin Laden bragging rights.

Particularly when the facts paint such a diametrically opposite picture.  As Jonah Goldberg so succinctly summed up Team Tick-Tock: unseemly.

But will leave it to the WaPo‘s Jonathan Capehart to unwittingly put this President’s performance in perspective with today’s Money Quote:

“The complaints from Republicans about President Obama having the temerity to pom-pom his greatest accomplishment — the killing of Osama bin Laden — is a bit much to take.“

There you have it, ladies and gentleman; The Obamao’s “greatest accomplishment — the killing of Osama bin Laden.

On the other hand, if we’d had 3-1/2 years in office, 2 of which saw our party in complete control of Congress, and all we had to show for it was $6 trillion in additional debt, trillion dollar deficits as far into the future as the eye can see, 4,000,000 million additional unemployed, a decimated American military, calamitous class warfare and an unconstitutional attempted take-over of another 1/6th of the economy, we too would likely be attempting to claim someone else’s success….

….as our own.

Moving on, it’s the “Coming Soon to a Town, City, County, State and Country Near You” segment, courtesy today of the New Media Journal:

First Public Pension Fund Files for Bankruptcy 

 

In what’s believed to be a first by a public pension plan, the Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund, Saipan, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.

The public defined benefit plan is only 38.8% funded, thanks to low investment returns and a benefit structure that’s been increased without raises in funding, according to the bankruptcy filing in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth consisting of three major islands in the Western Pacific. Currently, the pension fund holds $268.4 million in assets, with $911 million in liabilities.

Marcia Wagner, managing director at The Wagner Law Group, believes this is the first time a public pension plan has filed for bankruptcy. Notably, this is a restructuring of the pension fund and not a liquidation, which would be under the jurisdiction of Chapter 7 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

The development of the restructuring will set a precedent, particularly at a time when local government budgets and defined benefit plans are under strain. In a restructuring, it is likely that participants wouldn’t get the level of benefits they were expecting, Ms. Wagner said. As a result, how the court deals with retirees, disabled individuals and others entitled to payments will be pivotal.

The Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund has been bedeviled by the commonwealth’s inability to make its share of contributions to the pension plan, according to court documents and an April 17 letter to participants. The feud between the retirement fund and the commonwealth over the government’s responsibility to chip in for employer contributions to the pension plan goes back to 2006.

While the commonwealth court decided in favor of the retirement plan in 2009, the local government has been unable to make the mandated $231 million payment — and now the amount it owes to the pension plan has ballooned to $325 million, according to bankruptcy court filings.

Part of the problem has been the generosity of the pension plan. While the defined benefit program was designed to serve retirees and their spouses, the fund had permitted the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the first generation of retirees to receive benefits after the original retiree died, according to court documents. (See “Security, Social”)

Although the fund has ceased paying benefits to descendants of pensioners, managers predict it will be able to pay the current benefit rate for two more years and will fail in 2014, according to court documents.

File this one under “Shots Heard Round The World”; or, perhaps more appropriately, the very small tip….

….of a very large iceberg.

And in the “MSM Bias….WHAT Bias?!?” segment, courtesy of Conn Carroll and the Morning Examiner, Walter Russell Mead reports despite….

Walker Gains in Wisconsin: NYT Shields Readers From Distressing News

 

The New York Times has a long piece on the political situation in Wisconsin this morning, and in some ways it is reasonably balanced. The reporters note, for example, that the Koch brothers own a factory in Wisconsin that is unionized and that the union and management at the factory seem to have a reasonably productive relationship. It also gives controversial Governor Scott Walker some space to contest the arguments of his detractors.

Even so, it is a journalistic disaster: it tells you everything you need to know except the one thing you really need to know, and it reveals the soft pale underbelly of establishment journalism in America today.

The headline captures the focus of the piece: “Recall Election Tests Strategies For November.” The reporters look at how private and public sector unions on the one side and various conservative organizations on the other are organizing for the election over the petition to recall Governor Scott Walker and at how both sides think the issues and strategies shaping the recall will influence the outcome in November.

The piece does a reasonable job at getting the views of both sides, but no reader of the Times will be surprised to see that it wears its heart on its sleeve. The piece closes with a paean to the hope that labor will beat back the Republican challenge, calculated to warm the hearts of the NYT faithful:

However, labor leaders say the moves have reinvigorated members, prompting a beefing up of political operations. This contributed to the repeal, in a referendum last year, of an Ohio law limiting bargaining rights, has fueled the recall effort in Wisconsin, and, unions hope, will lead to Democratic success in November.

Nearly all of the larger confrontations have taken place in presidential battlegrounds, not only Wisconsin and Ohio, but also states like Florida, Michigan and New Hampshire.

“These state fights are a jump-start to get people engaged,” said Brandon Davis, political director for the Service Employees International Union. “We’re confident that if we get turnout to vote in municipal elections, they will also vote our way in national elections.”

Bob Kelley, a retired union carpenter, agreed as he hammered together a partition for a new call center in Madison. “If you’re where somebody throws down a gauntlet and attacks, what are you going to do?” he said, referring to Mr. Walker. “Maybe he did us a favor.”

Perhaps Bob Kelley is right, and Governor Walker did the unions a favor; Via Meadia has suggested that in both Wisconsin and Ohio a more narrowly focused, better thought through, less confrontational approach could have made the necessary reforms with a lot less trouble and polarization.

But somehow the reporters and editors who put together this long story on the implications of the Wisconsin recall for American politics now and in November failed to take note of one tiny little fact: Governor Walker is increasingly favored to win the June recall.

Intrade, a site where people can in effect bet on political races, shows Walker with a 68.5 percent chance of re-election as of Sunday morning. (By contrast, President Obama has only a 59.7 percent shot at a second term.) Recent polls on the race show Walker ahead, though the race is close and volatile — and the dynamics may change once the Democrats pick a nominee. None of this appears in this article. (How shocking!)

Forget accusations of media bias and ideological agendas: this is a collapse of basic news judgment. On this issue at least, readers who rely on the New York Times to tell them what’s happening in the country — don’t know what’s happening in the country. They genuinely don’t know that in Wisconsin this all out mobilization by both sides on a polarizing question is, tentatively and certainly not irreversibly, but noticeably and to a certain degree increasingly… breaking Walker’s way.

Sometimes I wonder if the Times hasn’t been infiltrated by a group of stealth conservatives, a sleeper cell dedicated to making the left stupid and ineffectual. For liberals to be basking in a dream world in which OWS is effective and unions are fighting back and winning in Wisconsin is exactly what conservatives want. Look how it worked on Obamacare: not a serious liberal in the country thought the individual mandate could possibly be thought unconstitutional until, quite horribly, the Supreme Court justices started asking all those questions that the press had done its best to ignore.

Perhaps the individual mandate will survive Supreme Court review; perhaps Scott Walker will go down in June. Via Meadia doesn’t know; but we do know that on these and some other matters, readers of the New York Times rather routinely miss out on the real stories shaping American life.

MSM bias….WHAT bias?!?  It’s not bias; simply the news they see fit to print.

Speaking of patently prevaricative public pronouncements….

Obama and Bill Clinton campaign together, stress economy

 

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton campaigned alongside Barack Obama for the first time in the 2012 race on Sunday, making an impassioned appeal to re-elect the White House incumbent and helping his fellow Democrat raise more than $2 million. A white-haired and noticeably svelte Clinton, 65, pounded the podium with his fingers and palms and gestured vividly while addressing about 500 Obama supporters outside the Virginia home of his friend and Democratic adviser Terry McAuliffe.

“Barack Obama deserves to be re-elected,” Clinton told the crowd in his signature raspy voice, warmly introducing the man who was the main rival to his wife Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries. “I think he’s done a good job,” Clinton said. “We are moving this country forward, we are going the right direction under President Obama’s leadership.”

When he took the outdoor podium, Obama, 50, noted Clinton’s “remarkable” economic record in his two White House terms and referred frequently to the political powerhouse standing behind him, who stands to be a huge fundraising force in the final months of this year’s campaign. “I didn’t run for president simply to get back to where we were in 2007. I didn’t run for president simply to restore the status quo before the financial crisis. I ran for president because we had lost our way since Bill Clinton was done being president,” Obama said.

Hey, it MUST be true; after all, it’s not like Der Schlickmeister….

….would like straight to America’s face!

We’ll give Skeptical Girl the last word on the subject, as she appears to have both these narcissistic con men pegged:

And in the Follow-Up segment, the AEI‘s Michael Auslin has more on Team Tick-Tock’s deliberate draw-down of America’s national defense:

Flying Not Quite as High

Our threatened airpower.

 

Nothing to worry about here folks….move along!

The release of the Obama administration’s defense budget in January makes clear just how the president intends to reshape the U.S. military. For starters, the Army will shrink 14 percent by 2017, the Marines will decrease by 20,000, six Air Force fighter squadrons will be deactivated, and the Navy will make do with fewer ships. Putting skin on this skeleton is the Defense Strategic Guidance, released in January at the Pentagon. Most significantly, the document calls for a shift of resources to Asia and promises that America will “maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged” by states like China and Iran. Yet in Secretary of Defense Panetta’s own words, U.S. forces will have to do this while facing “profound challenges” and relying on “low-cost and small-footprint approaches” to achieving national security objectives. 

Unfortunately, the president’s goals cannot be met by the ends he proposes. In particular, the administration’s plans will demand a much greater role for the airpower capabilities of both the Air Force and Navy. Yet under current plans both services will see their qualitative and quantitative air edge over competitors shrink, as they lose airplanes, operate an aging force, and face greater threats from adversaries.

Already the functions of the Air Force underpin everything America’s Joint Force does, from surveillance to transport, and from close combat to cyber defense. Airpower advocates point to the sea- and land-based air destruction of Saddam Hussein’s military in the 1991 Gulf war, the 1999 Allied Force air campaign against Yugoslavia, and last year’s action in support of the Libyan rebellion as proof of how airpower can overcome an enemy’s order of battle, command and control, and warfighting spirit. At the same time, airpower dominance allows us to deploy minimal numbers of combat ground forces and reduces civilian casualties and collateral damage.

The success of Western airpower in recent wars, however, had a foreseeable result: Potential adversaries are investing in systems that prevent access to their airspace. During the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, the U.S. Air Force faced a Russian air defense “no-go zone” that it could not penetrate or could have penetrated only at unacceptable cost. The lesson is simple: To survive an attack on your homeland or forces, deny the United States control of the air. 

Russian-made sophisticated multi-layered integrated air defense systems (IADS) present the greatest threat. These comprise rapidly deployable and movable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and launchers, engagement and acquisition radars, over-the-horizon radars, high-speed data links and computer networks, variable wave radio frequency transmitters, and the like. The most advanced systems can track and engage targets out to 250 miles, thereby pushing Western air forces farther out from enemy territory. The missiles an adversary can field will almost always outnumber the planes that the U.S. Navy and Air Force can put in the air. These IADS are already deployed by China and Russia, and countries such as Iran and North Korea continue to invest in air defense systems. Even older model mobile SAMs can be lethally accurate and difficult to destroy. 

In addition, advanced Russian and Chinese tactical fighter aircraft, such as the Su-30 and its variants, and one day fifth-generation models like the PAK-FA or J-20 can provide a formidable air-to-air capability that will interdict U.S. planes far away from the field of battle or critical command and control nodes. These integrated defenses will threaten U.S. military planners with the prospect of unacceptable losses. Indeed, the likelihood of inflicting massive casualties on American ground troops and air forces may well serve to deter American intervention in the first place. 

The bad news for the Pentagon is that it has few arrows in its quiver. Not only will the Air Force shrink by 500 planes from previous plans, but existing IADS in Russia and China already may prove impermeable to all U.S. airplanes except the F-22 stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber. Older U.S. fighters, such as F-15s, F-16s, and carrier-launched F-18s, would be at high risk if tasked with penetrating such airspace or destroying such IADS. And despite superior training, our pilots will be coming up against increasingly modern and advanced fighters in U.S. warplanes many of which are 30 years old. 

There will be only up to 140 combat-capable F-22s, after the Obama administration and Congress killed production of the plane in 2009. It is unclear, moreover, how survivable the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be in heavily contested airspace, given its slower speed and constricted performance relative to the F-22. Our few B-2 bombers—we have only 20 of them—operate from extreme intercontinental distances, thus reducing the number of sorties they can carry out against multiple targets. As for standoff weapons such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, it is a needed part of the U.S. arsenal, but cannot be retargeted once launched, and thus is of less use against mobile SAM launchers. Nor does the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) revolution change things, as today’s remotely piloted drones cannot survive in highly defended airspace. 

Yet the president’s plans will almost necessarily make us more dependent on airpower. If the Obama administration wants to rely on airpower for future U.S. military success, then the already delayed and increasingly expensive F-35 must prove to be survivable within the IADS envelope; if not, then the Pentagon should trim the planned number of F-35s and restart the F-22 line (despite the cost), further enhancing the F-22’s air-to-ground attack capabilities. The Air Force must also build a stealthy and survivable next generation Long Range Strike Bomber in sufficient numbers (at least 200) to carry out any global mission. The military also needs to invest in better electronic warfare capabilities, such as that represented by the Navy’s EA-18G Growler. And, as the recent loss of an unmanned spy drone over Iran showed, we need to develop better advanced stealthy remotely piloted aircraft for reconnaissance and attack missions and electronic jamming. 

Warfighting is becoming more risky as authoritarian regimes modernize their forces. If the United States wants to retain the ability to respond successfully to crises across the globe with a leaner and more cost-effective force, then our leaders must recognize that maintaining control of the air is the starting point for U.S. military supremacy.

Our Armed Forces are wearing their pants below their waists, and our enemies are buying belts and suspenders. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch with The Gang That Still Can’t Shoot Straight, the WSJ‘s Brett Stephens opines on why Romney’s eventual VP must be….

Anyone But Condi

A tempting but unwise choice for Romney’s vice president.

 

I cudda bin a contendah!  Stella!!!

Did you loathe and detest the Bush administration? If so, you’d probably say its ideas were horrible and their execution worse. Did you not loathe and detest the Bush administration? In that case, you might say its ideas were pretty good—only the execution often left something to be desired.

Now the person who did much of the executing tops a list of names to be Mitt Romney’s running mate. A mid-April CNN poll finds that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has unmatched name recognition and a favorable rating of 80% among GOP voters. She’s also the person Republicans would most like to see on the ticket, with 26% to runner-up Rick Santorum’s 21%. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tie for third place at 14%. (Results that cause us to throw the bullsh*t flag!)

The political appeal of Romney-Rice is obvious. (To who….CNN?!?) Here are two seasoned and reassuring presences who seem to complement each other in all the right ways. He’s the business whiz; she’s the foreign-policy wonk. His government experience is in the statehouse; hers in Washington and foreign capitals. He’s the un-Obama; she’s the un-Palin. He’s the world’s whitest white man; she isn’t. That could even count for something if President Obama decides to dump Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton.

There’s only one problem. Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration’s biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president’s core priorities and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly. She was a muddler of differences at the national security council. Her tenure at State was notable mainly for the degree to which the bureaucracy ran her, not the other way around. (Other than that, how’d you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?)

Take the surge. In her memoir “No Higher Honor,” Ms. Rice recalls some of the events leading up to Mr. Bush’s best and bravest decision. She starts by noting that, in early 2006, she had endorsed the idea of creating the blue-ribbon bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which wound up calling for a diplomatic, but not military, surge. She then adds that “it was a bitter pill to swallow that many commentators subsequently depicted the commission as a gathering of wise men from the administration of George H.W. Bush, who would teach his prodigal son a thing or two about realism and competence in foreign policy.”

Well, yes, that’s how it was seen, and one wonders why Ms. Rice couldn’t have seen it coming. Nor does Ms. Rice cover herself in glory by describing her ambivalence about every option on the table in the run-up to the surge—the surge itself; a mini-surge; some form of retreat; or her own preferred option to have Iraqis “kill one another for a while before they get the point.”

At length she admits to being scolded by the president:

“‘So what’s your plan, Condi? We’ll just let them kill each other, and we’ll stand by and try to pick up the pieces?'” Ms. Rice recalls bridling at having her feelings hurt.

It’s true that the surge was a hard call, or at least it seemed so at the time. Harder to forgive was Ms. Rice’s performance on North Korea. In October 2006, Kim Jong Il tested one of his nuclear bombs. Ms. Rice’s response to this flagrant challenge to the Bush Doctrine was to reward Pyongyang with an engagement policy that would ultimately lead to the lifting of key sanctions—in exchange for exactly nothing.

“Two and a half months [after the nuclear test],” recalls Dick Cheney in his memoir, “with Secretary Rice’s approval, Assistant Secretary [Chris] Hill and the American delegation held a bilateral meeting with the North Korean delegation in Berlin. On the evening of January 16, 2007, the Americans provided a lavish meal, supplied large amounts of liquor and proposed friendly toasts. . . . The North Koreans had crossed one of the brightest of bright lines—they had tested a nuclear weapon—and we were hosting them at a banquet.”

Ms. Rice’s North Korean misadventures are worth pondering for what they say about her instincts and judgment: her readiness to put hope before experience, reward bad behavior with concessions, allow her subordinates to flout the explicit instructions of the president and—if Mr. Cheney’s account is to be believed—more or less baldly lie to the president about the terms of the supposed deal the U.S. and the North had struck. The shame is that Mr. Bush blessed all this when he ought to have reprimanded Ms. Rice, if not fired her outright.

What about the rest of Ms. Rice’s tenure? By her own admission, she flubbed the handling of the notorious 16 words on Iraq’s WMD, giving life to the narrative that Mr. Bush lied about the intelligence. She hired Flynt Leverett for a top job at NSC; he’s since gone on to become the Beltway’s go-to apologist for Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She arranged a premature ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that allowed Hezbollah to declare victory. She opposed a U.S. attack on the nuclear reactor North Korea had built in Syria, leaving Israel to do the job.

It’s probably a testament to Ms. Rice’s inspiring story and winning persona that this blemished record has largely gone down the memory hole. (“Winning personna”?!?  We’ve seen gaffed groupers with more personality than Condi Rice!) The temptation for Mr. Romney to ask her to join the ticket must be great.

Still it must be said: If the presumptive Republican nominee is going to choose his running mate with an eye toward governing the country and not just winning the election, he can do better than Ms. Rice. Choosing her would simply be evidence that he doesn’t have much faith in his own November chances.

No….it would likely as not doom his chances in November.  Think about it; what constituencies could Romney possibly pick up by choosing Rice?  Blacks?  Feminazis?  Hardly.  And Conservatives will be backing him no matter who runs in the #2 spot on the ticket.

Sorry, Condi was dead weight around the neck of Bush II, and she’ll be no lighter if Mitt opts to wear her.

Next up, the latest from the great Thomas Sowell, entitled….

Who Is ‘Racist’?: Part II

 

Around this time of year, I sometimes hear from parents who have been appalled to learn that the child they sent away to college to become educated has instead been indoctrinated with the creed of the left. They often ask if I can suggest something to have their offspring read over the summer, in order to counteract this indoctrination.

This year the answer is a no-brainer. It is a book with the unwieldy title, “No matter what … they’ll call this book Racist” by Harry Stein, a writer for what is arguably America’s best magazine, “City Journal.” In a little over 200 very readable pages, the author deftly devastates with facts the nonsense about race that dominates much of what is said in the media and in academia.

There is no subject on which lies and half-truths have become so much the norm on ivy-covered campuses than is the subject of race. Moreover, anyone who even questions these lies and half-truths is almost certain to be called a “racist,” especially in academic institutions which loudly proclaim a “diversity” that is confined to demographics, and all but forbidden when it comes to a diversity of ideas.

The ultimate irony is that many of those who publicly promote or accept the prevailing party line on race do not themselves accept it privately. (See “warming, global”) A few years ago, when a faculty vote on affirmative action was proposed at the University of California at Berkeley, there was a fierce disagreement as to whether that vote should be taken by secret ballot or at an open faculty meeting. Both sides understood that many professors would vote one way in secret and the opposite way in public. In short, hypocrisy is the norm in discussions of race — and not just at Berkeley. Moreover, it is the norm among blacks as well as whites.

Black civil rights attorneys and activists who denounce whites for objecting to the bussing of kids from the ghetto into their neighborhood schools have not hesitated to send their own children to private schools, instead of subjecting them to this kind of “diversity” in the public schools.

As for whites, author Harry Stein says that many white liberals “give blacks a pass on behaviors and attitudes they would regard as unacceptable and even abhorrent in their own kind.” This, of course, is no favor to those particular blacks — especially those among young ghetto blacks whose counterproductive behavior puts them on a path that leads nowhere but to welfare, at best, and behind bars or death in gangland street warfare at worst.

In the introduction to his book, Stein says that his purpose is “to talk honestly about race.” He accomplishes that purpose in a fact-filled book that should be a revelation, especially to young people of any race, who have been fed a party line in schools and colleges across America.

He looks behind the highly sanitized picture of Al Sharpton, as a civil rights statesman with his own MSNBC program and his designation as a White House adviser, to the factual reality of a man with a trail of slime that has included inciting mobs, in some cases costing innocent lives.

Positive news also receives its due. Some readers of this book may be surprised to learn that the ban on racial preferences in the University of California system did not lead to a disappearance of blacks from the system, as the supporters of affirmative action claimed would happen. On the contrary, more blacks graduated from the system after the ban — for the very common sense reason that they were now admitted to University of California campuses where they qualified, rather than to places like UCLA and Berkeley, where they had often been admitted to fill a quota, and often failed.

Stein’s book is also one of the few places where many young people will see the actual words of people like Bill Cosby, Shelby Steele, Pat Moynihan and others who have opposed the fashionable platitudes that confuse racial issues.

Whether those words convince all readers is not the point. The point, especially for young readers in our schools and colleges, is that this may be one of the few times they will ever encounter a fundamentally different set of views on race — views that they have only heard referred to as coming from “Uncle Toms” or “racists.”

And in the Environmental Moment, America bids adieu to another arrogant Liberal ass:

Top EPA official resigns after ‘crucify’ comment

 

No worries, Al; come next January, your boss….and your boss’s boss….will be most likely be joining you.

On the Lighter Side….

And in News of the Bizarre….

Recently dumped dentist removes all of her ex’s teeth

 

Now this won’t hurt a bit….at least until later!

A recently dumped Polish dentist got revenge on her former boyfriend by removing all of his teeth – causing his new girlfriend to give him the boot as well, the New York Daily News reported. Anna Mackowiak, 34, agreed to treat a toothache for her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski, 45, just a few days after he had broken up with her.  According to the New York Daily News, Mackowiak initially tried to be professional about the process but had a sudden change of heart when she saw him lying in her chair.

That’s when Mackowiak allegedly gave Olszweski a massive dose of anesthetic and took out every single one of his teeth.  After the procedure, she wrapped his jaw in bandages to keep him from opening his mouth – and then she left. According to the New York Daily News, Olszewski knew something was wrong as soon as he woke up, but he didn’t realize the full horror until he got home and looked in his mirror.

Olszewski said he plans to get implants, but his new girlfriend was so unnerved by his toothless mouth that she left him. Mackowiak is currently being investigated for medical malpractice and could face up to three years in jail.

Finally, courtesy of Bill Meisen and the CBS affiliate in Detroit, another sordid story ripped from the records of the Tort Bar:

Calif. Man Sues BMW For Persistent Erection

 

BMW North America has probably had to deal with plenty of  unusual lawsuits, but one filed last week may be a first — a California man says the seat on his motorcycle has given him an erection he just can’t shake. (“Just can’t shake it”; a step beyond “diamond-cutter” and “cat-can’t-scratch it”!) Henry Wolf of California is suing BMW America and aftermarket seatmaker Corbin-Pacific claiming his issue began after a four-hour ride on his 1993 BMW motorcycle, with a ridge like seat. Wolf is seeking compensation for lost wages, medical expenses, emotional distress and what he calls “general damage.” (Sounds more like “genital” damage to us!)

He said he’s had the erection non-stop for 20 months. And it comes with another side effect: The lawsuit says Wolf is “now is unable to engage in sexual activity, which is causing him substantial emotional and mental anguish.”

WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with Dr. Michael Lutz, at the Michigan Institute of Urology, who said there is no medical data to support the man’s claim. However, “It’s been long-known that compression of the neurovascular supply to the penis —  if it’s compressed for a period of time, whether it be on a bicycle seat or some other device — it can actually cause prolonged numbness of the genitalia,” Lutz said. “Not only in men, but women can also get numbness in that region if they’re compressing those nervous structures to that region of the body,” he said.

BMW Motorcycles of Southeast Michigan in Canton, Mich., checked out the story and noted the man wasn’t riding a standard BMW motorcycle seat. He was on an after-market seat, which start at about $200. People generally buy them to make the ride more comfortable.

Our advice?  Ditch the BMW and hop on a Hog; after all, Harley’s are made to….

Magoo