Gotta agree with Krauthammer here, maybe the fact that there is a sex scandal might motivate some news organizations to do their damn job instead of protecting their golden child:
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The other thing I would add, which is what Bolton said. I think he’s absolutely right. There is no way that this is going to get in the way of the Benghazi story coming out, and in an odd way, and sort of a discouraging way, now that the story is attached to a sex scandal, it will become a story that will be pursued by the media as were not pursued before. They were holding off I think to protect Obama before and also perhaps out of a lack of interest. But just given the nature of our journalism, it will now become the hottest story around, and you can be sure that even the mainstream papers which did not show any interest whatsoever in this story up to and into the election are going to get on it now and it will become, it will unravel.
And I tell you what, Petraeus better be testifying. This resignation doesn’t get him out of that and if he refuses supboena’s better be issued.
One question, who leaked this affair?
Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said on Fox News that just as the administration initially called the assault on the Benghazi consulate on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks “purely coincidence,” it’s again “purely coincidence” for the affair to surface after the election but before Petraeus went to Capitol Hill for questioning about Benghazi. CIA Acting Director Michael Morell will now testify instead of Petraeus.
“As an old intelligence analyst, the way I read this — and I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation — is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100 percent on their party line story,” Peters said. “I think he was getting cold feet about testifying under oath about their party line story, and I suspect that these tough Chicago guys knew of this affair for a while, held it in their back pocket until they needed to play the card.”
He added, “Right after the election and right before Petraeus is supposed to get grilled on Capitol Hill, it just really smells.”
He better be brought in to testify.
See author page
Paula Broadwell is a sleaze without morals, and Petraeus is an idiot without principles. OK, so? That’s the reason for yesterday’s resignation? Don’t think so.
Something much hotter than an affair is removing this bureaucrat at a really critical time.
Of course, if he knows something he wants to spill his guts on, free from encumbrance of the government payroll, . . . have at it.
On the other hand, what a perfect way for the Administration to put a cap on everything related to Petraeus including testimony – “move along folks, it’s classified, and under investigation, move along.”
Petraeus, deserted his men and let them be butchered.
Petraeus, lied about the stupid video story and therefore participated in the coverup.
Lying is not accepted among officers. If you are not honest: you have no honor. We hold our officer corps to a higher standard than our politicians. West Point and four stars were compromised to be a stooge for Obama. Why did he think the reward was worth the risk?
An officer is subject to courts martial if he has an affair, not only is integrity involved, but he increases his exposure to blackmail. It’s true he is no longer in the military, but is the CIA that far removed? Was he at risk of blackmail as head of the CIA?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought
Hamlet III:1
Well, it seems that the administration knew of Petreaus’ infidelity while he was still in Afghanistan. It is being reported that the FBI was doing an separate investigation and stumbled on the affair. Yet, the administration still hired him to head the CIA.
So the President hired a man who could have faced a court martial for an extramarital affair, according to the UCMJ, and it is now all of a sudden a problem that Petreaus thinks can’t be dealt with? We have an administration that excels in cover-up and one woman can’t be silenced? And who was fixing to spill the beans on Petreaus?
I am not buying any of this. He may have had an affair, but the President knew it from the git-go. There is something afoul in all of this.
@Skookum: #2,
Petraeus may yet have an epiphany.
Unlike his recent boss, he seems not to be a narcissist. He evidently has a huge ego which needed stroking, but not to the extreme of narcissism.
There is a chance to regain a portion of his honor and dignity. Does Petraeus have enough integrity and backbone to tell America the truth?
Does he owe Obama that much to go down in ignominy and dishonor?
Is he willing to piss on his honor for Obama?
Six sigma.
More conspiracy. More intrigue. Let me guess: somehow this all leads back to Obama? And the General, what do we make of him: Obama blackmail victim or Obama traitor lackey? You guys might want to huddle up and discuss because I’m not seeing message discipline. Does it ever get old, the same repetitive, uninteresting, unoriginal accusations on knee jerk demand?
J.R. You gonna split hairs between narcissist and egotist. I’d say they’re synonyms.
Tom The beat goes on. Four more years of this. UGH.
Skookum wrote… “Is he willing to piss on his honor for Obama?”
That, my friends, is the question of the day now, isn’t it.
@Richard Wheeler:
Rich, it does amaze me. To force your mind, your imagination, into such a small box. The irony of course is that they mock and dismiss Obama while simultaneously obsessing over him and granting him near god-like powers, certainly the power to cause all the evil they, the vigilant detectives, detect.
Not a big conspiracy guy. However, after moping/pouting around for a few days post election this issue has piqued my curiosity. Something just isn’t passing the smell test here. I haven’t had time today to dig into this (peeked into a couple of military blogs – not much out there yet) so I look forward to reading the responses and thoughts here to this topic as they roll in while I’m shivering in a deer stand passing tradition along to the next generation this weekend.
@#7 Tom: I will agree that the sheer velocity and volume of conjecture is hard to keep pace with. Perhaps under different circumstances I would make a concession to your comments about conspiracy and intrigue. This is not one of those circumstances and I would submit that this administration has earned the scrutiny they deserve via their actions and own words.
So in quickly tangling some Midwest tomfool off the cuff questions together I wonder: Why the high profile changes and potential changes so immediate after the election? Hillary, Patraeus, Holder? What gives? Cannot help but wonder if they need to put some distance between these folks with their looming issues, let things run their course, and potentially issue pardons prior to the expiration of his term. I dunno, seems like a bit of a stretch, and perhaps off base, but something seems to be brewing and it is bugging the hell out of me. We’ll see how this plays out.
My first thought when I heard the news was that Petraeus was set up. Then, I found out the affair had been going on for a while. I’m hoping that Petraeus was told to say what he was told to about the Benghazi investigation, or they will tell about the affair. Petraeus did the patriotic thing and resigned instead of being a traitor to his country. This is what I hope.
If he is willing to testify or is served with a subpoena, he better have a really good hiding place. Obama is not going to let him testify. He will have an accident.
Coincidence? I think not.
@retire05:
One school of thought holds that this knowledge, most certainly in the Administration’s hands at he time that Petraeus was hired as CIA director, was considered to be a reason to hire him. A fatal hold over the man should he ever step out of line. It’s the Chicago Way.
If we still had a republic, knowingly appointing a man who had such baggage to a sensitive position would be the subject of hearings and scandal. But watch. Repercussions shall be nil. Behind the scenes this damaged man shall be quietly offered a path to relief from his suffering, and in return he will never tell what he knows about events in Benghazi. The so-called political opposition will at most make some cursory sounds and then let it drop. The House can subpoena him, but all they will hear in his testimony is white noise. He’s gone.
The presently occurring inquiry will transpire without the help of the right-wing blog; but the extreme right-wing will never be happy unless the outcome is how they feel it should be.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Tell us about the extreme right wing. Tell us what they believe.
Heads up! Petraeus has had affairs throughout his command. Timing..he cas still testify or hold him in contempt-and america re-elected a narcissistic, douche bag-again. Look at clinton’s last four years-carbon copy.
Ah! The FBI again. Since Hoover it has been so useful. They controlled all information used by the Warren Commission. The Clintons had FBI files of opponents laying around the White House, did they not? And Chief Justice Roberts made such an unexpected decision against logic, didn’t he? The FBI again and again.
and enterprises of great pith and moment
with this regard, their currents turn awry
and lose the name of action.
There’s the rest, Skook, according to 50 year old memory.
@Wm T Sherman:
Wm T, all candidates for positions as high as the director of the CIA go through background checks, extensive background checks. Since it is the president who nominates candidates for those positions, those background checks go straight to the Oval Office. You can understand why. How embarassing would it be for the president to nominate a candidate to learn later that the candidate had a gambling/hooker/drug problem?
On top of the background check, the candidate has to answer a questionaire that is extensive beyond your wildest imagination. It covers their entire lives. To deliberately lie on that questionaire is actually a crime. If caught, the candidate is subject to prosecution. So first comes the questionaire, then the background check. There is no way that the Oval Office was unaware of the affair. Obama knew, although now the public is being told he did not. That stretches credulity. If, and this is a big if, the president didn’t know, then someone else was assuming the position of the president to select candidates for the position of CIA director.
What is possible is that Petreaus lied on his questionaire, and was under the impression that Obama did not know about the affair in Afghanistan. Petreaus would have felt secure, and the Chicago mafia crowd currently operating in the White House, stuffed the scandal until they needed it. And they need it now.
Petreaus offered conflicting stories on Benghazi; first a statement was released that NO ONE in the CIA denied Benghazi assistance. Then Petreaus testified that it was some obscure film that caused the attack, at the same time those beneath him were saying it was an AQ affiliate. Valerie Jarrett had pulled the trump card, IMHO.
But Petreaus, except for his male weakness, is considered by all who know him to be one of the most honorable men walking the earth today. My guess is he decided he would out himself, before it was leaked to some publication like the NYSlimes, and take the hit. Remember, it was NOT Petreaus who said he would not testify before Congress next week, it was the titular head of CIA that made that announcement. When Petreaus made the announcement of the affair, the moving vans had already been lined up.
I personally think this is the administration’s attempt to bury Benghazi. But it won’t work. Petreaus will be forced to testify, albeit as a private citizen and not the head of the CIA, and probably with legal council. But testify he will, and we will then learn if he is a useful idiot for the administration, or a man who is willing to really fall on his sword for truth, honor and his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
In Petraeus resigns — is there a Benghazi connection? at the end of a longer essay both writer Paul Mirengoff and his blog mate John Hindenraker weigh in:
Personally, I agree that this is TOO convenient for it to be a coincidence.
Since Benghazi broke Obama’s cover-up has cost a Real Admiral who served on the fleet in the Mediterranian, a General who led all African operations and now a General who led the CIA their jobs.
Hillary said she is not going to testify to the House committee, she will be traveling to Austria.
And, after that, she leaves office.
Those are to many ”coincidences.”
Petraeus’ had his spokesman say he and the CIA leadership absolutely did NOT order any stand down in Benghazi.
Had another thought (made my brain hurt…) about the Obama crew knowing about the affair and waiting to play that card at the appropriate (profitable) time. That same tactic has worked for Obama in the past in his Senate races, no reason not to play those cards again, right?
Two words to remember in all of this:
COLIN POWELL
237 years of service the USMC has a birthday today
To all Marines with us and passed – Semper Fidelis.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY………………………………………..
The woman’s name is not hard to find. She is a 39 year old married mother of two young children. This tragedy involves many people, but their personal losses are inconsequential compared to the lives of the four Americans who were butchered by al-Qaeda on 9/11.
Our American Liberals can’t understand the distrust some Americans have for our administration. They expect us to accept an ever-evolving story line and move forward, forgetting about the night the U.S. deserted our heroes on 9/11 in Benghazi, but the families of these men deserve to know the truth as do the rest of Americans. If it brings down the Obama administration or exonerates the administration is secondary to the truth.
Petraeus had a great military career, but he compromised that career for a covert operation as a rump ranger while deployed, proving the strength of the proverb, “There is no fool, like an old fool,” He not only compromised himself, but he compromised his command and ultimately the security of the United States, because of the possibility of being blackmailed or manipulated by either enemies or politicians. A simple resignation doesn’t clear the air for Petraeus; he must clear the air to the mystery that shrouds Benghazi.
The administration has spun a series of conflicting stories, to assume they are completely innocent in the Benghazi debacle or in a coverup is not being realistic.
MOS 8541, Happy Birthday Marine!
Semper Fidelis, And may God Bless and watch over our Marines and soldiers in Harm’s Way!
I remember my first birthday on Parris Island. I was with several other Canadians, very serious young men. One of them was a Mohawk, possibly the best man I ever knew. Chesty Puller visited the Island and they fired the big naval batteries. They shook those old WWII barns we lived in. Those were the days, learning about the traditions that make Marines a little different, than everyone else.
Semper Fi
@retire05: Got any info on Obies’ background check?
@retire05: yeh — hadn’t thought of that rat — he just endorsed obie a couple weeks agoo — all the while masquerading as a repub — hmmmm!
I was going to correct spelling of “ago” but on second though “agoo” seems more apropos in these days
Interesting commentary: Video
Does Obama like to have a hedge to use against his appointees in times of emergency?
@Budvarakbar:
Powell endorsed Obama in 2008. He [Powell] was vying for a cabinet position then. But he got dumped by the Obama Chicago machine (Valerie Jarrett) who wanted only their players in the tony positions of power, along with a few left overs from the Clinton administration that soothed Bill’s ruffled feathers. Clearly the Obama administration understood that Powell was simply a political animal that would turn on anyone to protect his own hide. But the game has changed. There is going to be a lot of movement within the administration: Clinton, Holder?, Gates, Geithner, and ironically enough, not Petreaus. The field is open and Obama needs to pick someone that is palatable to squishy Republicans.
Powell would not want Secretary of State again. Too much risk from an administration that is willing to throw State under the bus to hide its foreign policy. Secretary of Defense? Powell doesn’t have the loyalty needed for that position. The Cheifs would not be willing to work with him like they are Gates. But director of CIA? Less exposure to the public eye. They are spooks, after all. Powell would be able to facilitate Obama’s foreign policy agenda all the while flying under the radar. Legacy, baby, legacy.
@Skookum: #29,
You’ll recall the venom which Obama exuded and spit during the 2nd and 3rd debates, against Romney. I thought it rather peculiarly personal, but it was simply a man demonstrating hate, jealousy, resentment, and disdain toward a wealthy white man. The racism was palpable and further evidenced in the racist division he ardently attempted to perpetrate on the Nation. In return, Romney was polite and respectful.
We can expect that any appointments made by this Administration are motivated to sustain the racist mindset, and we can also expect policy decisions to be guided by such. The coming 4 years will see a rush to really change the Nation.
There is no attempt to find balance or to create opportunity for those who want it. Obama said it himself, it’s about “revenge.” Hate is always dangerous. It is a great burden to bear.
@Skookum:
Distrust driven by data on specific issues is completely understandable; blanket distrust out of the gate on every issue is, I will humbly submit, not logical. Consistently advancing the same cause for multiple disparate events without evidence is not logical. Theories should be based on facts, not wish fulfillment. Performing a final accounting once facts do emerge will prevent intellectually sloppiness. Not doing so will possibly explain why the failure of conspiracy theories seems to have no moderating impact upon the spawning of more.
Distrust doesn’t reside from alleged and/or hidden conspiracies. It is based on agenda. The American left has never hidden their destination. Only their tactics are seemingly hidden.
Tom, you link too many under the banner of conspiracy theorists. I know a blacksmith who had a pleasing personality, but he allowed himself to be consumed by images of black boxes with infinite energy potential and black helicopters whose passengers commit untold mayhem and make modern life nearly impossible. He has allowed himself to be swept away and I doubt if he will ever recover from his neurosis.
In the beginning, he may have seen vague but convincing evidence of some type of conspiracy; unfortunately, when this seed of doubt and suspicion germinates in a creative mind, conspiracy theories can proliferate. You may see me and others as being consumed like my friend, but he is around the bend and losing touch with reality.
We thirst for reality and the disjointed facts that are emerging from the Benghazi attack. The conspiracy of Benghazi may simply be in the administration’s reluctance to release a factual picture of the assault because of fear that its foreign policy may look weak or ineffectual or maybe the reason is far more sinister.
Unfortunately, when innocent Americans die, the stakes are raised immeasurably. No one died in the silliness of the Valerie Plame outing or the bumbling stupidity of Watergate. Because of the deaths and the inconsistencies of the presentation of facts, the seeds of doubt begin to germinate in creative minds. The administration could have countered this reaction by leveling with America and especially the relatives of the fallen.
the general’s misbehavior is an unfortunate way to wrap up a brilliant career, but since it was understood to be ongoing during his deployment, a breakdown in the code of West Point graduates seems to be endemic of our top officers. They are not supposed to engage in this behavior or to tolerate this type of behavior. It may sound like a code for Boy Scouts, but their are reasons to expect higher standards of performance from these men, and now that he has his teat in the wringer, one of the reasons is being illustrated. His paramour is a former West Point graduate as well, and thus new the risk she and the general took upon themselves. Yet the questions are intensified and the water becomes murkier with the general’s resignation. More questions and possible explanations will come to the surface, until the administration offers a plausible explanation.
@Skookum:
Thanks for a very thoughtful and informative response. I fully support your right as a citizen to demand answers from your government. In this specific case, I too want to know exactly what happened. It is not my intention to brand those who want to know what happened in Benghazi conspiracy theorists. It is the assumption of cartoonish evil intent without a shred of evidence that pushes it there. I think you will agree that there is a boatload of difference between ” The conspiracy of Benghazi may simply be in the administration’s reluctance to release a factual picture of the assault because of fear that its foreign policy may look weak or ineffectual ” and “Obama watched them die” for nefarious purposes, or maybe just because he hates Americans. I challenge anyone on this blog to offer a rational for why Obama would want Americans to die, why he would withhold assistance for this reason.
The other factor you have to consider is that this isn’t a singular instance of ascribing an incident to a sinister hidden Obama motive. The pattern is quite clear: everything that fault can be found with is similarly explained in the same manner, by the same people. So while any accusation on its own can be framed as a responsible quest for answers, and the alleged reason just a hunch, the repeated insistence on that same reason for a wide variety of events will necessarily strain the logic to the breaking point and open those who recycle it to the legitimate suspicion of being like your friend who traced all mayhem back to black helicopters in the sky.
@Tom:
Tom, what you see is not a blanket nor mindless condemnation of all things Obama. On the contrary, it is a reaction to the mass of publicly available empirical evidence that creates skeptics. After seeing this man and his posse demonstrate economic illiteracy, divide the public into warring groups, reward cronies with public money, use government powers to punish political enemies, watched them insult our allies and enable our enemies, lie to us again and again — after all that — to have a default position other than distrust would be foolish.
You think this man’s reelection is a wonderful thing. You expect people to believe the ridiculous promises and accusations originating from the Democratic Party, and call anyone who does not believe crazed mindless and extreme. We get it. Your position is clear. We opposed this and we lost. All the predictable disasters that are coming — you and your friends own it all, 100%. Everything is the way you made it.
Americans, by nature, are not conspiracy theorists. We are practical, logical and quantitative creatures. Other cultures lend toward conspiratorial thinking. The Arab world is one of these. Even that region’s top leaders think in terms of conspiracy. That is why, when a U.S. president speaks to an international audience, he is so often misunderstood.
The fact that Americans see conspiracy as a form of weakness could, in fact, become a weakness. It may blind us to danger, discounting the connection of dots as nonsensical or the product of an overactive imagination. 9/11 offers a good example.
Discerning subtle actions and behaviors can be quite valuable. It is a form of induction and requires the ability to listen. Observe. Pattern. Test. And test again.
Because if said conspiracy exists, it will necessarily entail processes, systems and repetition. Time will prove its existence. Or not.
@sunrise:
Sunrise, when this President speaks to a domestic audience, he is so often misunderstood. This is not because Americans don’t understand where President Obama is coming from philosophically: he has consistently been, and never denied, that he’s a Center-left Progressive Democrat (although his persecution of the war on terror has certainly been more in line with a Republican approach). It is because a large contingent of his audience insists on interpreting what he says through a particular lens. This lens is not one that sees a person who sincerely, whether through patriotism or sheer ambition, wants to succeed at his job – wants what’s best for America – but is going about it all wrong. This lens sees a person who wants to destroy America, either literally or America as we know it. Reasons given for this alleged mindset of Obama’s are variable, but at root all invariably come down to the fact that he is considered alien, either literally a foreigner, or culturally alien, and thus a threat to what the authors of these theories deem to be “American values”. My working (conspiracy?) theory on this is that those who are susceptible to this mode of thinking have no ability to project themselves into the minds of, let alone empathize with, those who don’t think like them. There are many conservatives who can do this admittedly difficult thing, and they have consistently resisted the sillier or more disturbing sides of the Obama-hatred. I know David Brooks is derided as RINO here, but he, in my mind, is an example one such person, an individual who possesses the innate ability to understand how people he doesn’t agree with think and feel about things, and thus cannot dehumanize them the way some of the authors here find it so easy to dehumanize Obama and the Left.
@Tom:
The fact that you consider Obama to be “center-left” makes you either sadly delusional or simply an idiot. I would hope it is the former and not the latter.
There is nothing centrist about Obama, and I don’t think his intentions are “evil”. I do think that he views the United States as an over-aggressive nation that has stomped on lesser nations to gain its wealth. He is, in every sense of the word, an anti-colonialist and views the U.S. as a colonialist nation, much as he views the United Kingdom in the same way.
Do I think Obama wants to “destroy” the nation, as you put it? No, but I do think he wants to “transform” this nation into his idea of what it should be, equal, not superior, to other nations, no matter how small they may be. Obama is a world egalitarian. He believes that no one nation should be superior to any other nation. Does that have anything to do with Obama being alien? No, it has to do with Obama being raised in the Marxist philosphy of Saul Alinsky, the Green Party which he supported while at Columbia, righting the wrongs committed by those he views as modern day robber barons against the little people.
And yes, I agree with you that Obama wants to succeed at his job. But he views his job as remaking this nation into some type of “equal, but not superior, to other nations” model. Most Americans do not have that view, but they are uneducated and uninterested in the machinations of everyday government, and will not realize the damage the Obama administration will rack up until it may be too late. They simply voted for the free stuff.
@retire05:
Thank you, Retire, for your thoughts. It’s interesting to me that you consider logical the supposition that someone who clawed his way up from very modest beginnings – no President or Governor father – to the most prestigious elected position in the history of the world would “views his job as remaking this nation into some type of “equal, but not superior, to other nations” model”. I’m trying to imagine any circumstance where this attitude makes logical sense. Should I assume you believe a liberal who rises to a managerial position at the top Radio Shack in any given state would likewise see his/her job as an opportunity to degrade that store’s performance until it was “not superior” to any other store’s performance? It makes one wonder how anyone can rise to such heights when one’s alleged ambition is mediocrity. But anyway, thank you again for you interesting input.
@Tom-
I am curious. You seem to believe that Obama wants the United States to be the absolute best and most wealthy nation on the globe, but that he is just making mistakes in trying to achieve this.
What I am curious about is whether you ascribe his abject and absolute failure to achieve anything remotely resembling success to sheer unmitigated stupidity? …or stark raving insanity? Surely you give the man enough credit to recognize his mistakes and correct course if he truly wants us all to succeed? Surely an intelligent and sane man would be able to notice that his policies were making things immeasurably worse, not better?
I feel that perhaps you should stop and think upon your critical viewpoint. Failing to notice evidence of darker motives when evidence is awash upon the decks of your life is as “crazy” as starting from the “conspiracy” and working backwards.
So which is it? Is Barack Obama a drooling retard? or a gibbering lunatic? I’d hate to accuse either of a conspiratorial scheme to make things worse in the U.S. , but worse they are. Surely your well meaning man would have noticed his failures in four years?
@Tom: I believe Obama would have been a different man if he HAD “clawed his way up from very modest beginnings…” But the fact is he didn’t. It doesn’t appear that he has ever earned anything, every personal success he has achieved has been delivered to him.
All of his influences, from his birth forward have been influenced by people who believe without question that our nation would be better off entrenched in a communist/socialist/marxist model. His montors to this day have been heavily steeped in communism. He himself said many times that he intended to “fundmentally change this country”, without ever going into specifics.
Tom, your big mistake is the belief that conservatives don’t like him because he’s a hard core, far left liberal. Well, that’s not fully accurate. We don’t like him, can’t stand him in fact (in no particular order), because of his disregard for the laws of this land (from the vey beginning), his disrespect for the wants and needs of the citizens of the United States, his personal racism, his dishonesty, his desire to nationalize not only the health care industry, but the manufacturing industry and the energy industry. We cannot tolerate is arrogance, and the way he has converted our allies to enemies while befriending our enemies (that whole providing aid and comfort to our enemy thing bothers me personally). This has not been a complete list by any measure, but maybe you can get an idea from it.
@Tom:
You are trying to equate economics with ideology. They are not one and the same. You can be economically conservative and ideologically liberal. Just take a look at Hollywood. Most are big believers in capitalism when it comes to their own bank accounts, but are ideologically far left. So shall we take a look at the reason for that?
Wealthy left wingers are mobile. If they don’t like the tax base of one state, they are financially equiped to move to another state without any loss of earning. Take Tina Turner. When she retired, although she earned the bulk of her wealth in the United States, she moved to a nation with less taxation and became a legal resident there. Her royalties now are not subject to the same taxation as they would be if she lives in California. She has the money to come and go, freely, between her native U.S. and the less tax expensive nation she now lives in. She is just one of many wealth ex-pats, who maintain their U.S. citizenship but live in nations where they get to keep more of their earnings. Hypocritical? Yes, but done every day. Any decision by the Obama administration will not effect them, so their wealth is not jeopardized and they have the freedom to be ideologically left wing at no cost to them other than what they donate to left wing politicians.
Middle class workers do not have that luxury. They are stuck because of property values where selling off their homes would net them an actual loss. They work in jobs that are region specific and there is no possibility they can leave that job, and find an equal one in some lower tax environment. The are not mobile and their choices are fewer. The middle class is financially stuck. And it is them that the adverse effects of Obama’s political philosophy will hurt the most. They just don’t realize it yet because most of the Obama doctrine is not designed to start until 2014 when it will be too late for them to change their minds. Using the example of the person in a managerial position with Radio Shack, he/she has the opportunity to transfer to a state that is more of their liking. The floor clerk does not.
As to Obama “clawing his way up from very modest beginnings.” What a raft of b/s. Obama was born into a middle class family. He attended the toniest of all schools in Hawaii, not some run down school house in the ghetto of Honolulu. He never lived in a barrior/ghetto, but in fact, where he did live with his grandparents was a rather upscale area (upper middle income) area when he was growing up. His grandmother was an officer of a bank, not some teller. He attended not one, but three, expensive tony universities. He never has revealed how he managed to pay for them, and his tax returns do not show an inordinate amount of interest paid on student loans. He speaks of having only one short part time job during his college years. When he lived in Indonesia, his step father was not a pauper. Lolo Soetoro worked for an oil company and was a high wage earner, at least by Indonesian standards.
Obama never held a job, except for his short time at a law firm, that dealth with capitialism. Every position he held, from a lawyer that represented a man who sued over lending rules, to community organizer was idealistic, not capitalistic.
How did Obama rise to such heights? Many are asking that same question. But from my own research, it seems he had quite a bit of help. A protege of Frank Marshall Davis, who maintained ties with his Chicago past through people like Vernon Jarrett, gave him a hand up in the Chicago political scene. His ties with William Ayers while at Columbia, attending Cooper’s Union events that were left wing, to his friendship with Edward Said who also paved the way in Chicago for him. Obama didn’t just magically land in Chicago. It was planned. And when he did land in Chicago, he was a left wing idological dream; intelligent, far left, articulate and clean (to quote Joe Biden) and black. Axelrod, who was by then good friends with the communist Vernon Jarrett, took Obama under his wing and after Obama lost his first election, Axelrod took over. I am not foolish enough to not realize the genius of David Axelrod, or his ability to destroy the opposition. He is the Democrat Party’s Karl Rove.
Obama’s ascention to the highest office in the land was no accident. He was groomed, by Axelrod, to campaign. Axelrod once said that he would have Barack stand in front of a mirror for hours practicing giving speeches that were written for Obama. Axelrod was also not above dirty politics, going so far as to have sealed court documents opened so that Obama ran totally unopposed in every election he ever ran in except for the 2008 presidential campaign. He spent a short time as state senator, merely a stepping stone to a federal office, and within months of assuming his place in the U.S. Senate, began his campaign for president.
So please, do not try to pass the “rags to riches” story of Obama off as being true. It is not.
One other thing that contributed to Obama’s rise was the brilliance of David Axelrod’s realization that the press was decidedly left wing and would not be curious about a narrative he created about Obama. As Obama stated in the prolog to one of his books, he was a blank slate on which could be written what people wanted to believe about his. Nor did Axelrod discount the amount of white guilt (written about by Shelby Steele, another bi-racial man) that exists in this country.
The genius of David Axelrod should be studied by every conservative in the nation. How you can present a person who, by any standards in any era of our history, would be unacceptable to the voting public due to nefarious ties, as an acceptable alternative with no history is a lesson in how pliable the American voter is. To take a man, make him a blank slate and unknown quotient are things legends are made of.
@Vukdawg:
Those are excellent and important questions, Vukdawg. Not to re-litigate the past, but I assume you will at agree that Obama came into office with an economy in dire straights. I think where we were going economically, good or bad, was about as difficult to predict as it’s ever been in our history. In cases like this, I think it makes sense to look at probabilities. There was a % chance we could have plunged into another Great Depression, a chance we would end up where we are now, and a chance that we would have a thriving economy.
Everyone will disagree on how to apportion the odds, but I think every intelligent person would agree we could have ended up anywhere in that range. We ended up somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, but I would submit – probability wise – it was a resounding success because the odds on average would have put us somewhere much worse given the circumstances. Obama saved millions of jobs by bailing out Detroit, something that conservatives, Mitt Romney for example, would never have advocated for on principle. If any one decision can be traced directly back to the results of the election, it’s that one. That wasn’t a cynical “giving stuff to people for free” maneuver, that was a progressive using government to fix a problem where a conservative would have said government had no place. In this instance, Obama was right – it worked and millions of peoples’ lives are better as a result. This was a good outcome.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
Thanks for detailing your issues. I don’t ask anyone to think differently about politics. I’m not trying to persuade anyone to be a liberal. I don’t see liberalism or conservatism as diseases that can be cured. There will always be both and both are important. Having both help to check the excesses of either camp. What I do question is illogical thinking. The fact remains that a disturbingly large percentage of conservatives subscribe to conspiracy theories regarding Obama. How much time and energy has been wasted, do you think, chasing Obama’s birth certificate down the rabbit hole? I wonder if you’ve considered how sick those of us outside of the 10% on the far-right are of the witch hunt, how contemptibly we view it, how it affects out perception of what the Right has to offer intellectually to the national discourse. How much better could that time, four years of it for Pete’s sake, have been spent methodically arguing core conservative principles?
@retire05:
I find your first three paragraphs very interesting. Good observations. As for your take on Obama’s ascension, it smacks of not seeing the forest for the trees. You give Obama zero credit for his rise, but you honesty think we should view Frank Marshall Davis or William Ayers as king makers? You never would have heard of any of these people if it wasn’t for Barack Obama. To try and flip the polarity of influence and power is absurd. And yes, I do think that Obama clawed his way up, perhaps not from nothing, but certainly it was a tougher route than GWB or Mitt Romney had to take. Obama’s story is so appealing because nowhere else in the history of the Earth could this have happened. Y0u feel compelled to belittle the man and simultaneously grant his alleged sponsors god-like powers for having pulled him up. That version makes no objective sense, but worse than that, it turns it’s back on a great American story of drive, ambition and perseverance that should appeal greatly to conservatives.
@Tom:
So you think that throwing every man, woman and child into deeper government debt was a good idea when it comes to bailing out the UAW? Because that is exactly what it was. And who is on the hook for that debt? Taxpayers, not General Motors. Ed Whitaker, who took the helm of Government Motors made an ad that said GM had repaid all its taxpayer funded debt. He was wrong, and quickly replaced.
What Romney advocated, along with many of us, was allowing GM, and Chrysler now owned by a foreign company, to reorganize under standard bankruptcy laws. It would have saved the jobs, allowed GM to renegotiate oppressive union contracts, cut deals with vendors and allowed the auto industry, outside of Ford, to reoganize retirement benefits. But only union workers were bailed out. The workers of Delphi got the shaft while the UAW got the gold mine. Now GM, due to federal pressure, is building vehicles like the dangerous Volt, whose sales are dismall and wouldn’t even be on the market if it were not for the federal government purchases the majority of them. But then, I guess you have no problem with the federal government giving preference to one auto maker over another, but I damn sure do.
No one knew what the economy was going to do. It is not a predictible science. History shows us that recessions are shorter, and not as severe, if the federal government stays out of the picture. The market is self healing, but politicans want to add a notch to their belts by saying they can cure the ills of the market. They can’t, but stupid people by that theory.
As to liberal vs. conservative: excuse me, but are you still operating under the assumption that the Democrat Party is liberal? It’s not. It’s more socialist than anything. True liberals have flocked to the Libertarian Party. True, historic liberalism doesn’t exist in the DNC and hasn’t for a long time. And ironicially enough, the only people who continue to talk about Obama’s birth certificate are people like you. Conservatives have moved on. It is what it is, and lamenting the past fraud perpetrated on the American people is not going to change.
And frankly, Tom, even if there had never been a birth certificate scandal, I doubt you would hold conservatives in any higher value or have a different perception of conservative values.
@Tom: Tom, I’ll comment on two things here; Obama didn’t inherit a bad economic situation, he helped create it. Then he chose the totally wrong path to fix the problems, and continues to race down that path in his apparent efforts to break the economy so he can fix it in his vision of what we should be. You speak of Obama saving the auto industry as if the industry would have ceased to exist, that is patently wrong. What he did, especially with GM, was strip the investors, bond holders and stock holders of their investments, giving those shares to the UAW and taking ownership by the government. Then, GM and Chrysler went to bankruptcy court anyway. No jobs were “saved”, they weren’t going to be lost. If you have trouble believing me, read up on Delta Airlines. Check with the 20,000 Delphi employees that lost out, then try again to explain how successful that ordeal was. Also check with the independent franchise dealers for both GM and Chrysler to see how that worked out, many of them got closed down including one of the local dealers here.
Funny you should bring up the birth certificate. Back in the mid to late 90’s up until he decided to run for the Presidency, Obama claimed he was born in Kenya. That is common knowledge and in print. Then his story changed. When he got called on it, he spent millions of dollars (of someone else’s money) to conceal his birth certificate and other records. That doesn’t raise a question in your mind? It would have been a very simple thing for him to release his birth certificate and be done with it. Then, years later he throws an obvious forgery out there, arrogantly saying “here it is, the real thing…”. Still no suspicion going on? He lied about is relationship with William Ayers and Rev. Wright, still no curiosity? The deception and dishonesty exuding fom this president is appalling, made more so by the continued support he gets, which often defies reason.
Here’s what the Right have to offer to the national discourse… We want honesty. We want the truth, even if it hurts. We will not condone corruption at any level. We believe in the principles this country was founded on. We believe the laws were written for ALL to follow, without exemptions for political position or connections. We haven’t seen those principles from the left, and the definition of compromise isn’t “okay, we’ll do it your way…”
@Tom:
I shall call you on this one. I followed the progress of the SDS and the Weathermen in the newspapers and on TV. The media wasn’t always the Progressive bootlickers we see today. Ayers and his future wife were hot topics back in those days. Some of us were genuinely concerned with the prospect of violent insurrection, and Ayers would have been happy to oblige if he could have conned enough followers to accept his Marxist pablum. It is ironic that he was declared innocent for a technicality (guilty as Hell, but free as a bird: his most infamous quote), while his gang members including his present wife did hard time. His first wife having been killed after a premature detonation of a terrorist bomb they were making.
With friends like this, who are just guys from the neighborhood, it is easy to see why some of us who chose a different path look at the Obama history with skepticism.
@Tom:
You seem to have a reading comprehension problem, or you willfully ignored what I said. I credit Obama’s ascention soley to David Axelrod, who by 1884 was a national player in the Democrat Party. He was so successful at getting Democrat candidates elected, he was clamoured for all across the nation. He was also brilliant at getting black candidates elected, including Chicago’s mayor, Harold Washington.
Frank Marshall Davis provided the philosophy of Obama. William Ayers, and his family’s position in Chicago, provided the introduction into Chicago politics and wealthy, campaign donating Democrats, but David Axelrod provided the body count at the polls. Axelrod was the king maker, Ayers simply the financial resource. The last true pauper to power story would be Harry Truman, but even with Truman, he had the full force of the corrupt Missoouri political machine behind him. Obama simply repeated that story, although he was not poor, Chicago style. And I find it ironic that you would put so much store into a rags to riches story when the Democrat Party has consistantly offered up some of the wealthiest of Americans for president, from FDR to John Kerry. Just one more case of hypocracy from the party of hypocracy.
Sorry, but I don’t buy into “the most brilliant man to every hold the office of POTUS” meme about Obama. When he goes off teleprompter, he is a disaster. He is not an orator, he is a deliverer of prepared speeches via at least two teleprompters. He is excellent at reading what others have written, and espousing their words. Nothing more, nothing less. He is arrogant, egotistical, aloof, and frankly, I think racist as least in how much respect he, and his common thinking wife, have for white people.
Now you may want to look at the Democrat Party and give them credit for being the first party to elevate a person of race. Oooops, you don’t get to make that claim, either. It was Republicans, not Democrats, who elevated a man to be Speaker of the House and Vice President that was a greater percentage minority than Barack Obama, who is 1/2 white,. not Democrats.